Lit for wedding photographers mark condon by lucii lopez

INDEX INTRODUCTION 5 METHOD 9 EXAMPLES 15 FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHERS 25 ADAM JOHNSON ALLISON CALLAWAY ANDY GAINES BEN APPLEBY BEN CHRISMAN BETH KERECHANIN BRETT BUTTERSTEIN BRIAN CALLAWAY BRIAN MULLINS BRUNO ROSA CHRISTIAN CARDONA CRYSTAL STOKES DANIEL STARK DAVE MOSS & ABBY TAYLOR DAVE PAEK DUY HO EASTON REYNOLDS ELISHA STEWART EMIN KULIYEV ERIC McCALLISTER ERIN CHRISMAN FRANCK BOUTONNET GEOFF WILKINGS HEDRIAN NGABITO HENDRA LESMANA

26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74

HIRAM TRILLO IAIN GOMES JACOB HANNAH JAMIE IVINS JASON VINSON JEFF ONEAL JOANNE MARINO KATHRYN KRUEGER KEITH LEE MOSHE ZUSMAN NEIL REDFERN PASQUALE MINNITI PETE FARRELL PYE JIRSA RAHUL KHONA RALF CZOGALLIK RAPH NOGAL ROSS HARVEY RYAN ZHANG SIGIT PRASETIO STEVEN ROONEY STEVE WISE TITO RIKARDO TONY HOFFER TREVOR DAYLEY VICTOR LAX VICTORIA SPRUNG

76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120 122 124 126 128

FEATURED LIGHTING GEAR ABOUT THE AUTHOR

131 139

INTRODUCTION

f you’re reading this now, you’re passionate about wedding photography. I’m passionate about wedding photography too, and am striving to improve at my craft.

I’m sure that everyday in your business involves hustle. Hustle to get noticed. Hustle to get the lead. Hustle to book the wedding. A new wedding photographer seems to pop up every day, and that’s one new kid on the block who’s vying for a piece of the wedding cake. A couple of years ago I wrote a book called More Brides to help fellow wedding photographers increase their wedding bookings. I wrote about all the marketing and sales techniques I had been using to triple my wedding enquiries over just one year. However, it’s clear that marketing can only get you so far. Creating better art is the second string of the bow that we need to concentrate on tuning, day in and day out. If we’re not getting better at taking photos… well, we’re stagnating. If we continue to create images that don’t motivate us… that don’t challenge us, sooner or later, this will become apparent in our work. These days, every wedding photographer and his dog is a ‘natural light’ wedding photographer. Whether you make your images look old with VSCO and photograph couples standing on the tops of cliffs or under waterfalls, ‘natural light wedding photographer’ usually just means one thing – incompetence. Being incompetent at using (additional) light isn’t a bad thing, of course. If you’ve tried using off camera lighting and you genuinely can’t do it, then so be it. Or maybe you just don’t dig the look – I get it. However, let’s not beat around the bush here - most of us are calling ourselves natural light wedding photographers because we have NFI how to use a flash to creatively light an image! We’re not choosing to use the sun because we prefer it. We’re choosing daylight because it’s easy. We’re not choosing to use high ISOs during reception because we like the noise. We’re choosing it because the technology in our cameras allows us to be lazy. I’m not saying that we all need to switch our styles to using 100% additional light though – far from it. Flash for the sake of flash isn’t the goal here. However, what I am trying to provoke in you is the stark realisation that you’re surrounded by thousands of other wedding photographers whose work looks identical to yours in the eyes of your client. Sure, your branding may be different. You may have a nicer website or have shot in some exotic places, but when you boil it all down and examine the photos, you have to admit to yourself that all natural light wedding photography looks the same. At least to the uninitiated, i.e. your next bride.

She can’t tell that you’re deliberately underexposing so you can bring back crazy shadow detail while preserving the highlights. She doesn’t care that you’ve paid a hundred bucks for the latest film-look presets. And she sure as hell doesn’t know that you own the latest f/1.4 lens. All she sees are photo after photo of couples kissing at sunset. By having the confidence to use an additional light source to illuminate your subject in a creative way, you’ll elevate your work. Even if it’s just for 0.1% of the wedding photos you deliver (that’s the final photo in a client’s gallery of 1,000 images), by including an image like the ones in this book in your repertoire, you’ve just added value to your business. Even if it’s just that 0.1% of the work that you normally produce,, if you choose to highlight it on social media or your website, congratulations – you’ve just jumped out of the vast ocean of natural light wedding photographers and into the puddle of those who are getting noticed by producing something different. Your next bride may not book you based on that one photo, but that one photo may just be the hook that pulls her through your door. It takes something special to be noticed in the sea of social media in which we all swim. Posting pretty images of couples during golden hour may get us somewhere, but you’ll be swimming against the current. Use this book as inspiration and motivation to step out of your comfort zone. Yes, the sun is comforting and soothing, and it’s easy to relax and get lazy when it’s above us. But next time you feel yourself leaning back on your crutch of natural light, break out a flash or two and stand up tall. You’re about to create something truly unique. Cheers and happy snapping.

Mark Condon Wedding photographer and founder of Shotkit. Author of the Shotkit Books, Lightroom Power User, More Brides and LIT.

METHOD

sing lights creatively in wedding photography is a huge topic and one that usually confuses most people.

Even if you have a good understanding of photography and how your cameras functions, using supplementary lights brings with it a whole host of new terminology, techniques and variables. You can spend all the time you want reading about the inverse square law, lighting ratios and everything else that goes into creating a correct exposure using flash, but I recommend you start by following my simple guide below. I’ve distilled the process of creatively lighting a night time image into 2 simple steps which should help get you close to producing something similar to the images in this book. Step 1 is about subtracting the light, and step 2 is about adding the light. No matter how complex your lighting scenario, these 2 steps are all that you need to think about in order to control the light and produce something that natural light just can’t reproduce. All you need is a camera, an additional light source (flash, LED panel, torch…etc), and a subject. You also may need a way to trigger your flash remotely.

STEP 1 - SUBTRACTING THE LIGHT First you need to underexpose the scene with your eyes. I do this by squinting my eyes until they’re almost closed, and seeing what objects in the scene are still emitting enough light to register in my vision. You’ll see me walking around a wedding venue at some point near the end of the reception looking like I’m sleep-walking. Most people think I’m drunk… In doing this, I’m quickly scanning the scene for (illuminated) objects I may like to include in the composition, or ones that I’d prefer to remove. When I’ve found a scene that interests me, I’ll move on to the second step – using Live View to confirm the underexposure.

If you’ve got a mirrorless camera, then you can use your EVF, but for the rest of us dSLR dinosaurs, we’ll be resorting to the Live View of our camera’s LCD.

Live View is a hugely underrated functionality in our cameras. We can take advantage of Live View to preview the exposure of a scene, before taking the photo. Live View effectively does away with chimping, getting us to our desired exposure much faster and more accurately than ever before. With Live View (and exposure preview) turned on, I’ll switch the camera to Manual mode, and start underexposing the image by adjusting my camera settings. The key here is to use your shutter speed and aperture to reduce the exposure, whilst keeping the ISO as low as possible. Shooting at a lower ISO will give you more leeway in your post production, most notably in recovering lost shadow detail. Have a look at Example #3, the image of the Indian couple in the Before/After chapter. The before image is straight out of camera, and could quite easily be used as the final product. However, by increasing the exposure a few stops, I found the illuminated version much more pleasing. Since the image was captured at a relatively low ISO (and thanks to the incredible dynamic range of the Nikon D750’s sensor), the final image remains relatively clean. Once you’ve underexposed your image sufficiently so that the illuminated areas are appearing as you wish, now you need to work on your composition. Since any horizontal and vertical lines such as walls, floors or horizons will now be lost in the darkness, you’re free to twist and rotate your camera as you wish, using the illuminated objects to frame your subject, guide the viewer’s eye, or simply as compositional elements. In Example #2 of the Before/After chapter, you can imagine how I was able to move my camera around with Live View activated so that the neon sign and hanging lights formed a pleasant composition. By throwing everything else into darkness, I could hide all the other elements in the frame. Before you bring your subject into the frame, you have the option of attaching your camera to a tripod to ‘fix’ the composition, or you can just try and remember your composition to be used later. I prefer the second option since it gives me the flexibility to tweak my composition if I’ve got something slightly wrong. If you plan to return to the shot later, another tip here is to utilize your camera’s custom settings. By saving the camera’s exact settings to one of the ‘custom banks’, you can switch back to whatever usual mode you shoot in, in order to re-join the wedding action, safe in the knowledge that you can return to your ‘LIT’ photo settings in an instant.

STEP 2 – ADDING THE LIGHT With your settings saved, or your camera in manual mode, you’ve just dealt with one big variable of the puzzle – the ambient exposure. If you’ve fixed your camera on a tripod, you’ve also dealt with the next big variable – the background composition. Now it’s time to deal with the next variable – artificial light. At this stage, it’s worth noting that the more experienced you are with using flashes or other lights, the quicker you’ll be able to estimate things like flash distance and flash output. However, as this is a cheat’s guide to getting the photo, we’ll be resorting to a bit of flash chimping. So, place your flash (or alternative light source) in whatever location you’ve chosen to light your subject: Perhaps you want a rim light, so position the flash to the rear of the subject. Maybe you want to rim light the couple, but include some of the background too, in which case you can point the flash towards a wall behing the couple, still keeping them close to the flash. Or perhaps you just want to light the subject properly, in which case you can point the flash at the subject from whatever frontal angle you choose. At this stage, I’ll usually grab a member of the bridal party to use as my subject – they’re usually drunk enough to oblige! Depending on your scene, you’ll need to adjust your flash output and the distance from your subject appropriately, but for most situations, you can start with flash output at around lowmedium power and adjust from there. I’d recommend placing your flash on a stand and leaving it in the same place (or instructing whoever’s holding it to remain still), and just adjusting the flash output. Remember, you need to deal with all the variables one by one to un-complicate your shot. By keeping your light in one spot, you’ve just dealt with the distance/position variable. Since you won’t be able to see your subject through your camera’s Live View with the ‘LIT’ photo settings, I’d recommend you use one of the auto settings on your camera (such as Program mode), just to be able to direct your subject into the correct position in the Live View scene. Finally, switch your camera back to your saved settings, tell your stand-in subject to get back to the dance floor, and go and find the newly weds to take their place.

You can of course do all of the above whilst using the newly weds as your actual subject, but I find it far less stressful (not to mention convenient for both parties), to set everything up in advance. Then it’s just a case of snap-snap… one awesome LIT photo complete :-) Obviously this is just a quick and dirty guide to getting something creative with your lights. It’s just the tip of the iceberg as you’ll see from the incredible work of the other photographers in this book, but I hope that you now feel motivated and inspired to get out there and try it for yourself. Let me know how you get on.

Mark

EXAMPLES

n this chapter Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve included some before/after images of my own.

I need to practise a lot more before getting to the level of any of the featured photographers in this book, but I hope that these images help illustrate the method from the previous chapter. By including how the actual scene looked, either before underexposure, or before post production, hopefully youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get a better idea of the processes involved.

Example #1 Before

This was the final shot of the night of a destination wedding in Queenstown. The wedding venue was high enough that we had an uninterrupted view, literally into space.

After directing the couple into their first dance pose, I asked a bridesmaid to illuminate them with my LED light panel. You can see her standing there in the background of the before image. I wanted to shoot at a lower ISO, but since the stars weren’t as visible, I decided to use a higher ISO, but remained well within the boundaries of my camera’s sensor. Post production involved raising the global exposure, then doing some minor cloning work to clean up the bride’s hair and also to remove the bridesmaid. I also sharpened the sky and increased highlights to bring out the stars even more.

After

Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: Sigma 24mm f/1.4 ART Light: Neewer CN-160 LED Panel Camera Settings: f/1.8, 1/8, ISO1250

Example #2 Before

After

Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.4G Light: Neewer CN-160 LED Panel Camera Settings: f/3.2, 1/160, ISO500

This was taken at a local Sydney venue at which I often shoot. Since these weddings can become a little monotonous, each time I shoot there I push myself to create a LIT image that hasn’t been taken before. The venue had recently installed a ‘Be Mine’ neon sign, surrounded by hanging carnival lights. After taking the usual high ISO available light shots with the ambient light illuminating the couple, I decided to bring in some artificial light in order to underexpose the scene, hence removing all the unwanted elements. In order to underexpose the image sufficiently, the light panel had to be shone at full power, right next to my couple. You can see how close the bridesmaid in the background of the before photo is holding the LED light panel to the couple’s faces. Even with their eyes closed, they spent the next minute or so pretty much blind! Post Production was a little fiddly, mainly due to the neon sign being covered by plants, breaking the flow of the writing. Once the sign was cleaned up, I reduced the highlights on the couple and on the sign (to reduce the light spill), then cleaned up the bride’s hair a little to preserve a clean silhouette. I also cloned in some more light bulbs to balance the image. By coincidence the couple’s pose formed the outline of a heart, which complements the mood, message and colour of the image perfectly!

Example #3 Before

After

Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.4G Light: Nikon SB-700 Speed light modified with a MagGrid and ¼ CTO gel. Camera Settings: f/5, 1/125, ISO800 Flash Settings: Approx. 1/32 Power

This was the final photo of an Indian wedding I shot recently. The bride was a graphic designer with a keen eye, and had requested a night shot with creative lighting. It was the end of a long day, and being uninspired by the location and with only a few minutes before I was due to depart, I decided to employ what I call the ‘lazy LIT shot’. The beauty of the LLS is that it can be employed anywhere in just a few seconds. I rarely set up light stands, so found a nearby guest to hold my flash, which I’d gridded to reduce spill, and gelled to keep my subject’s skin tones warm. I asked the guest to point the flash at my couple, standing about 6ft behind them. Then I instructed the couple to have a hug, and took 2 photos, with my flash being remotely triggered with the YongNuo 622’s - being cheap and Chinese, the first exposure didn’t trigger the flash, but the second did, and resulted in what you see as the before image above. I actually thought I’d deliver the photo as I saw it on the back of my camera, but during post production, I noticed that by raising the exposure a couple of stops, the result was way more impactful – probably due to the bride’s expression, the heart shape that the couples’ heads and the bride’s arm create, and the unusual colours of the wall in the background. This was all serendipitous, but the fact that I shot the image at a relatively low ISO gave me the leeway to experiment with the final product. In the end I delivered both versions of the image, turning the before image black and white for variety.

Example #4 Final Image

Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: Nikon 35mm f/1.4G Light: Neewer CN-160 LED Panel modified with a full CTO gel Camera Settings: f/5, 1/100, ISO200 Unfortunately, I don’t have the before version of this image, but I decided to include it to illustrate the process I described in the previous chapter. Below the chandeliers was a rather unsightly drinks bar, surrounded by guests. I placed the couple in front of the candle you see on the wall, and composed my shot with Live View in order to create some coherence with the chandeliers. Since the light from the candles wasn’t enough to illuminate the couple, I asked a guest to hold my light panel behind them, slightly to their right. I also gelled the light with a CTO gel to match the ambience of the rest of the scene. Post production was very minimal. I painted over the couple with an adjustment brush set to a closer white balance to the candles’ ambient light, and cleaned up a bit of the light spill from around the wall. In retrospect I should have paid more attention to the bride’s pose – she’s actually grimacing due to the proximity and power of the light!

Example #5 Final Image

Camera: Nikon D750 Lens: Sigma 24mm f/1.4 ART Light: Nikon SB-700 Speed light modified with a MagGrid and 1⁄4 CTO gel. Camera Settings: f/3.2, 1/250, ISO1600 I haven’t shown the before photo here either since it was so close to the final image. This is a photo from a destination wedding on the Waiheke Island just off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand. By this stage in the night the groom had had one too many drinks and was stumbling around the dance floor about to pass out! Before the premature end of his night, I asked one of the guests to stand in the middle of the dance floor whilst holding my gridded/gelled flash with attached trigger, and point it directly back at me. Then I instructed the bride to bring her inebriated husband to stand in between the flash and the camera, then to get into a first dance pose for long enough for me to fire off a few exposures. I would have preferred to have shot square on to the couple in order to keep the lines of the arched door frame perpendicular, but to be able to include the chandelier, I needed to shoot from lower down. The pose could have been improved on, but the bride was actually grabbing the groom’s head to stop him swaying around drunkly! In Lightroom, I used the adjustment brush to darken various distracting areas of the photo and then raised the shadows very slightly to bring back some of the detail in the ceiling. 23

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHERS

ADAM JOHNSON www.arj-photo.co.uk @arjphotographyuk

CONCEPT The bride was sitting in the window light having her makeup done in a really quiet and tranquil but very dark bridal prep room at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire. There weren’t really any ‘moments’ happening so I decided to try to take a cool shot of the bride’s amazing Pronovias dress. I couldn’t find anywhere particularly inspiring to hang it, so I hung it on the chandelier.

EXECUTION There really wasn’t any ‘good light’ in the room apart from the window light where the bride was sitting so I knew I’d have to light the dress. I hung it on the chandelier and set up a flash initially not intending to include the bride in the frame. I took a couple of normal shots, closeup details and other things. I had the flash on a high enough power that the already dark room went really dark but I exposed enough that the chandelier would still have a nice glow. The flash itself was unmodified (no gel or grid or anything) as I wanted the chandelier to look orange in the final image, but it was zoomed in to 105mm to try and contain the light on the dress only (this didn’t matter so much as the dress was hanging in space so there wasn’t much else for the light to hit). Once I’d taken the obvious shots I started seeing what else I could do to make the shot better. I favour the 35mm lens so I find it very easy to see life at 35mm, and I stepped back into the bathroom to get a wider view and realised I might be able to get the bride in the shot, balanced perfectly with the table lamp on the other side. I took that shot but it was lacking something. There were a couple of empty champagne glasses on the table, and I had some battery powered LED’s in my bag, so I put half the LED’s in each glass and shot through the gap between the glasses, laying down on the bathroom floor right next to the toilet and this was the final shot!

POST PRODUCTION I didn’t do much post processing at all to this photograph. All the colours are as they were in camera and I just adjusted the contrast and blacks in Lightroom. I also used a brush to darken a bit of the background where there were minor distractions and I boosted the orange of the lamps and the blue of the LED’s slightly but this was basically how it looked out of camera. I love how the final shot turned out!

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Yongnuo YN-560 II Speedlight 26

Battery powered blue LED fairy lights

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/200, Approx. 1/16 Power, 105mm zoom

ALLISON CALLAWAY www.callawaygable.com @callawaygable

CONCEPT The bride was getting ready in a small hotel room with her family and 9 bridesmaids. With so much activity I was finding it hard to photograph her without the chaos. So I started looking for a way to isolate her, and saw a hint of her reflection in the frames. I knew that if I could light her, I could make a dramatic photo that not only concentrates on her, but also tells more of a story. The frames tell us where she is, and also add a bit of old Hollywood glam to the mood - which is perfect for her while she is getting her hair and makeup done.

EXECUTION With LIT shots, I always think about two steps. First, setup the background exposure as if the subject was not there. Then bring in the speedlight and adjust the flash level accordingly. So I metered for the frames and reduced the exposure down half a stop. Then my lighting assistant brought in the flash and stood to my left and pointed the speedlight directly at the bride. She adjusted the power of the flash until the bride was exposed correctly. Additionally the Speedlight was snooted to reduce spill.

POST PRODUCTION There is very little retouching and post-process. I am always trying to get the photo right out of the camera. That being said, all of our photographs are finished in Alien Skin Exposure to add just a kiss of fade and depth.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Shooting at f/8, the contents of the frames are in focus and clearly visible - this could potentially have been distracting, had it not been for Allison’s skill in highlighting the subject wth artificial light, drawing the viewer’s attention to the correct place, whilst still telling a story and encouraging the eye to explore all corners of the final image.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 1635mm f/2.8

Canon 580EX Speedlite 28

1/4 CTO Straw Gel

Snoot

SETTINGS ISO 400, f/8, 1/200

ANDY GAINES www.andygaines.com @andy_the_gaines

CONCEPT This couple was really keen to make a cool and different group shot, but the timings of the wedding had meant that there hadn’t been chance to get anything during the day. So, at some point after the first dance and during the party we rounded up the bridal party and headed out of the venue to find some space.

EXECUTION Using a long exposure and with the camera balanced on a chair (as I don’t use a tripod at weddings), I arranged the people in place and focussed manually on the groom as he held his phone light on (as it was too dark to see and focus without it). After starting the exposure I then ran around the back of the group and manually fired the flash in my hand behind each of the people in the shot.

POST PRODUCTION This photo didn’t need much post-processing - I applied my standard preset and then a little bit of dodging in the sky to bring out some of the colours - and that was about it!

EDITOR’S COMMENT Back-lighting each member of the bridal party provides a rim light as well as enough spill light to slightly illuminate the front of their bodies The 30 second exposure allows the camera’s sensor to pull in enough ambient light to provide context to the scene, leaving it much lighter than it would have been to the naked eye. We can imagine the actual darkness if we consider the irregular spacing of the subjects.

GEAR

Nikon Df

Nikon 35mm f/1.4 30

Nikon SB-700 Speedlight

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/2, 30s, 1/16 Power

BEN APPLEBY www.hbaphotography.com @hba.photography.ben

CONCEPT I wanted to shoot an image to show that weddings don’t always have to be light and airy and instead, can be a bit cool and dirty – something that had a bit of atmosphere to it. It was shot in the bar area at a wedding venue - a 200 year old cotton spinning mill that was once the hub of British industry during the industrial revolution. I knew this image couldn’t be all glossy and modern – it just wouldn’t have suited the setting at all, so the aim was to create a modern day, prohibition inspired scene, that had an almost painterly feel to it that showed the bridal party just hanging out as friends.

EXECUTION I knew straightaway that I had to shoot this image as a composite. The area was quite small and when using this technique at weddings, there simply isn’t time to bring in a massive lighting setup, so I kept it simple with 1 gridded softbox, repositioned for each shot. Using a tripod, I set up my camera and composition, got my subjects into place and asked them to just hang out and interact with each other. It was a dark room, but full of lovely ambient light so I knew I had to stop right down to draw as much of the ambient light in as possible from the lamps. Shooting with my assistant holding the softbox just a couple of feet away from each subject, I photographed everyone individually, directing the light source to create some nice light and shade with lots of contrast.

POST PRODUCTION I like to try to get the light, exposure and white balance in-camera as close to the final edit as possible. I start off with processing the image in Lightroom, adding a little more contrast, bringing out details in the shadows a touch more and then reducing the blacks a little bit to enhance the atmosphere. From there, everything is taken into Photoshop so that I can piece each photo together to create a final image. Finally adding a small curve to the overall image to create a slightly more matt look to the black elements and the shot is finished, ready for sharpening and exporting.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 50mm f/1.2

Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Hybrid AS RX 32

Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 Tripod

Elinchrom 70x70cm Rotalux Softbox & Grid

SETTINGS ISO 400, f/10, 1/30, WB 5200k, 1/8 Power

BEN CHRISMAN www.chrismanstudios.com @chrismanstudios

CONCEPT This shoot was for a really great couple from Texas. They had never been on an airplane before traveling to San Francisco to elope. We met them in Muir Woods north of the city where they got married, and then we took them into San Francisco and across the Golden Gate bridge to have a better view at sunset. It was really dark by the time we got up there, and cold.

EXECUTION I saw a faint ray of light coming off the bridge, so I asked them to stand in front of it, with my wife Erin holding the flash behind them to get a little rim light. I rarely go to 8000 ISO so it really must have been dark by the time we got up there. That ISO is pushing it with this camera, but at f/1.8 at 1/50th of a second, the ambient was just enough to bring out some details in the background. And the Golden Gate bridge is so iconic, it’s hard to go wrong with it as a background.

POST PRODUCTION We didn’t need to do much in post for this photo. There was no manipulation at all. No cloning. No fakery. Just a little color correction to make sure the sky was blue and the bridge was warm and that’s it.

EDITOR’S COMMENT With the flash firing at low power close to the couple and gridded with a modifier, the light from the flash is constrained. This provides just a rim light to the subjects, with no light spilling to their front, giving the final image a sense of mystery.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 35mm f/1.8

Neewer TT850 Speedlight 34

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 8000, f/1.8, 1/50, Approx. 1/32 Power

BETH KERECHANIN www.sethandbeth.com @sethandbethphoto

CONCEPT When we get some extra time with the groomsmen, we try to get super creative. The guys were really cool and we had this very dark poolroom to use in the basement of the wedding location - sort of a man cave. Multi-photo composite shots definitely need a tripod and a pep talk. The groomsmen were posed to look rad and instructed to not move an inch. To increase the dramatic look of the scene, we darkened the scene using the camera settings and lit the subjects with a gridded Speedlight.

EXECUTION The camera was fixed on a tripod and the shutter was fired 7 times, while my partner Seth lit up each subject as he maneuvered his way through the scene. The six men stayed very still and the light source was moved around the scene, lighting up each subject individually. The pool table was lit at a low angle to give the scene some context.

POST PRODUCTION This 7-photo composite was constructed in Photoshop by layering 7 individual photos with each groomsman and the pool table being lit individually. The photo was processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. A Lightroom preset was applied to each photo and brush adjustments were made to get the background very dark and the subjects properly exposed - this process could also have been done using masks in Photoshop. The 7 photos were auto-aligned in Photoshop as layers. When stacked on top of each other, a portion of the photo on each top layer was erased to reveal the photo/subject below it. This process was repeated until all 7 subjects could be seen and the last two layers could be flattened into one photo. Further exposure adjustments were made to put on the finishing touches.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 2470mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight

Benro Mach3 2 Series Tripod

Phottix Odin Flash Transmitter/ Receiver

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 1600, 28 mm f/2.8, 1/320, 1/64 Power

BRETT BUTTERSTEIN www.brettbutterstein.com @brettbutterstein

CONCEPT I really love clean, simple compositions and so I wanted to eliminate everything but two things the couple framed by the window and the line of lamps leading toward them.

EXECUTION I tilted my camera so the line of lamps would be diagonal, therefore creating a leading line to the window. Since my video light is dimmable, I could match the exposure of the lamps with the lit couple. I was standing inside a room and I placed the couple outside of a window standing in the snow. By underexposing the interior of the room, I was able to only show the lights on the ceiling. I had to tilt the camera to include all of the lights, placing one of them in the corner of the frame. By manually adjusting the power of my video light on the couple, I was able to match their exposure to that of the interior lights.

POST PRODUCTION Since my exposure was very close to what I wanted, all I needed to do in post was boost saturation and make sure my skin tones were warm enough to match the yellow, tungsten lights.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Underexposing to remove distraction and highlight interesting (illuminated) elements is a useful technique in wedding photography, since wedding venues are often not aesthetically ideal! The Dutch tilt and the contrast between the saturated warmth of the interior lights/skin tones and the cold blue of the exterior provide additional interest to the final image.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 35mm f/1.4 38

Frezzi MFIC-PT Video Light

SETTINGS ISO 1600 F/1.4, Soft

BRIAN CALLAWAY www.callawaygable.com @callawaygable

CONCEPT This scene happened very fast and without warning. All of a sudden the groom’s dad jumped on stage, took off his jacket and started energizing the crowd. All of his buddies moved towards him and began to lock their arms. At that point I knew he was going to jump. And you could tell from his friends, this wasn’t his first stage dive!

EXECUTION Somehow I knew that I wanted him to ‘pop’ from the dark background so I placed two light stands, each with one CTO gelled Canon 600 EXRT radio fired speed light, to his left and right - pointed at the crowd. (the light stands were already set up for the reception) I used my on camera flash as the Master flash, which was set to fire with the white card. Again, it happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to separate the flashes into groups, etc. All three flashes were firing at the same power. When I started making test shots, I was doing so I was jumping off the stage and running around to the front of his friends. I adjusted the flash power to 1/8, and rolled the aperture to 7.1 as I ran around the corner of his locked-armed friends. I looked at the back of the camera to make sure it looked good, and he jumped. I barley got the shot and only had time to take one photo.

POST PRODUCTION My process is to get the photo right in camera. So most of my work has little post-processing and retouching. In this shot, I cropped it in a bit and removed some distracting lens flare. I finished it in Alien Skin Exposure to give the photograph some warmth and a bit of depth with a slight fade. That’s it!

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 16-35mm f/2.8

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite x3

SETTINGS ISO2500, f/7.1/ 1/200th at 16mm, CTO on two remote flashes fired at 1/8 power

BRIAN MULLINS www.brianmullinsphotography.com @brianmullinsphotography

CONCEPT Sparkler exits are really popular in my area. My approach is to balance the ambient light of the sparklers with any other ambient light and use flash to clean up any unwanted ambient color. The idea was to have the couple walk between the two lines of guests holding sparklers for their wedding exit. Some of my couples will stop and kiss (as they did here), others will just walk right through. I use both off-camera and on-camera flash to give myself two “zones” to photograph in - wide shot (with guests) and tight (just the couples faces).

EXECUTION My off camera flash was set directly to the left of the couple at 10’ high with the Westcott Softbox. This gave great texturizing quality to the dress and the softbox provided a gradual and natural falloff to the light for the guests’ faces. Shooting at 1/50th let me pull in the ambient light and warmth of the sparklers as well as the background lights. There was not much ambient light on the couple so I used the flash to “freeze” the action while maintaining a slower shutter. I made the choice to not gel my flashes so the cooler flash would compliment the warm glow of the sparklers. I adjust my white balance in post processing but this could of been shot around 5000k white balance in camera to get the same effect.

POST PRODUCTION My editing process is to do all the heavy lifting in Lightroom for exposure, white balance, cropping/ straightening and density adjustments. Behind the couple there were multiple cars, and trucks that had to be cloned out in Photoshop. I also applied a slight blue tone overlay using Alien Skin Exposure.

GEAR

Nikon D3S

Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-28

Nikon SB-910

Westcott Rapid Box Octa XL

PocketWizard Plus III Wireless Triggers

SETTINGS ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/50, 1/16 Power on OCF, TTL on camera

BRUNO ROSA www.brunorosaphoto.com @brunorosaphoto

CONCEPT The photo was taken at the end of the day when the sun was just about to set completely and it was raining - that is a beautiful and killer combination for an awesome shot that you just canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss.

EXECUTION I decided to use a wide lens to show the beautiful background properly, and used a flash placed in the background pointing up into the umbrella above their heads to make the water drops show up more. Then I just moved myself to get a bit of flare in the lens. I shot around 30 images and had to move around a lot to get the final shot!

POST PRODUCTION I just applied my own editing preset and added a bit of exposure, color and saturation to make the image pop a bit more.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Using a flash modified with an umbrella as the primary light source, and actually including it in the final image is a popular technique in wedding photography. In this image, by integrating the umbrella with interesting foreground bokeh and background landscape elements, Bruno manages to create something more original. Having the determination to make the couple stand for 30+ images in the pouring rain deserves special mention too!

GEAR

Nikon D3S

Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight

Pixel King Pro Flash Wireless Transmitter/ Receiver

SETTINGS ISO 600, f/4 , 1/400, 1/2 Power

CHRISTIAN CARDONA www.xb.com.co @christiancardonap

CONCEPT My couple told me about some fireworks that would go off during the reception, so i decided to find the best spot to take a photo of them with the fireworks in the background before the first dance started.

EXECUTION To get the best photo of the fireworks, I needed to shoot a lot... since fireworks don’t pose :) I chose a wide angle zoom lens to be able to capture both the fireworks and the fans on either side of the couple, to give some context to the location and provide a frame. The couple were already lit by the ambient light, but to provide separation and a little more excitement to the photo, I placed 4 separate flashes on lightstands and triggered them with my Speedlite.

POST PRODUCTION Just adding my preset, it was almost done in camera, just a few Exposure and WB corrections + in Photoshop clean a few things at the side.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Choosing to include the fans on either side of the couple as well as the actual flash ‘bursts’ add interest to the final image, as well as providing two separate frames - one for the couple and one for the firework explosion.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 II

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite x3 46

CheetahStands C8 Lightstand

SETTINGS ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/200, 1/32 Power

CRYSTAL STOKES www.crystalstokesphotography.com @crystalstokesphotography

CONCEPT My plans were to recreate the sun. This particular bride wanted airy sunset shots but the weather on her wedding day had different plans. It was very overcast, but I still wanted to try to give her what she wished for!

EXECUTION In order to ‘recreate’ the sun, I had to do a couple of things. I needed to make my light appear as large as possible as well as mimic the warmth of the sun with the color of my light. In order to create a nice warm glow, I used a full CTO MagGel. I did 2 different things to make the light appear larger and more ‘sun like’. First, I added a MagSphere to the light to spread it out - my assistant stood about 15 feet behind the couple and held the monopod with the light, as high as he could. Secondly, I chose a 200mm focal length to compress the image and bring the light in even closer, again, making it appear larger. I metered for the light that was available since I wanted to achieve a natural sunset look - I just needed to make sure the light was bright enough to get there and I did! From there, I asked the couple to just hold each other and go in for the kiss!

POST PRODUCTION Post-Processing was minimal. I warmed the image and then did a radial filter around the couple where I warmed and darkened outside of it! There were no changes to the crop and all edits were done in Lightroom.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Crystal’s photo is a good reminder that an artificially ‘lit’ photo needn’t look artificially lit! By balancing artificial light with the existing ambient light in a scene, a realistic sunset photo can be produced, whatever the actual lighting conditions. This is clearly a very useful skill for a wedding photographer to have.

GEAR

Nikon D4

Canon 70200mm f/2.8 II

Neewer TT850 flash

MagMod Flash Modifier with MadSphere and full CTO MagGel attachment

SETTINGS ISO 1000, 200mm f/3.5, 1/250, 1/4 Power

DANIEL STARK www.starkphotography.com @starkphotography_

CONCEPT This photo was taken during the first dance of Josh & Liz at their wedding reception in a popular hotel in Portland, Oregon. We are drawn to photos that can tell multiple stories in one frame. The idea is photograph the action and also the reaction. For this particular photograph I thought it would be awesome to show the musician singing their first dance and also the couple. I wanted to do it in a creative and dramatic way. I’ve played around with shadows of couples before and had been keeping this idea in my back pocket.

EXECUTION My wife Lindsay was controlling the flash and the position while I was framing up the photo. The flash is about 5 feet away from the couple - pointed directly at them but from a low angle. I am between the couple and the musician with my camera focused in the musician. Every time I took a photo it would cast a shadow of the couple on the wall behind the musician. In my head I was hoping for a twirl but it didn’t happen. So I just focused on a reaction of the musician and tried to frame him in with the couple. I want to say this is all skill but there was really a lot of luck involved too. I’ve tried to replicate this photo at other weddings and can’t get it. The flash is about 5 feet away from the couple - pointed directly at them but from a low angle. I am between the couple and the musician with my camera focused in the musician. Every time I took a photo it would cast a shadow of the couple on the wall behind the musician. In my head I was hoping for a twirl but it didn’t happen. So I just focused on a reaction of the musician and tried to frame him in with the couple. I want to say this is all skill but there was really a lot of luck involved too. I’ve tried to replicate this photo at other weddings and can’t get it.

POST PRODUCTION The post on this shot wasn’t very hard. I changed it to black and white - turned down the highlights and boosted the black. Then I added some clarity and sharpening to get stronger edges around the shadows.

GEAR

Canon 6D

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Canon 580EX II Speedlite 50

Yongnuo YN-622C Wireless Transmitter/ Receiver

SETTINGS ISO 2500, f/3.2, 1/160, 1/2 Power

DAVE MOSS & ABBY TAYLOR www.abbyplusdave.com @abbyplusdave

CONCEPT We were on our way home after spending a full day shooting in the mountains to celebrate our couple’s vow renewal. As we were about to pass Banff we asked them if they’d be up for a star shot to finish their session. After an enthusiastic “yes” we drove half-way up Mount Norquay which overlooks the townsite of Banff and gives you a beautiful, unobstructed view of the Canadian Rockies in all their glory. We wanted to capture the wonder of the Rockies in combination with the magic of the night sky.

EXECUTION We found our placement on the pitch black, cold and windy mountainside and set the D750 on our Manfrotto tripod. We used the built-in iPhone flashlight on the couple to see where they were in the frame and to get our focus set. Once we had the composition and focus down, we tweaked the shutter until the stars looked just right, which gave us the added bonus of a bit of orange rim light on the subjects from the town lights of Banff a few thousand feet below. Then it was time to bring in the flash, so we set it to rear-curtain sync so it would pop at the end of the exposure, freezing them in place with minimal ghosting. It took a bit of experimenting to get the right flash power, but once we had it everything came together.

POST PRODUCTION Abby edited the photo in Photoshop, increasing the clarity, contrast and saturation of the sky, increasing the overall exposure of the image, burning down the orange light cast on the subjects from the townsite below, darkening the blacks and cloning out a distracting tree. Then we exported the image using Lightroom.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikkor 35mm f/1.4

Phottix Mitros+ Speedlight Tranceiver

Manfrotto 290 Tripod

SETTINGS ISO 3200, f/2.5, 5s, 1/64 Power

DAVE PAEK www.davepaekphotography.com @davepphotography

CONCEPT During a late September at a wedding in New York, I was scrambling to get some creative dress and shoe shots. After I shot the bride’s dress, I was scouting around the venue looking for interesting places to shoot the bride’s unique blue shoes. After trying a few shots that I deemed uninspiring, I spotted a beautiful red textured painting with thick circular brush strokes hanging almost inconspicuously in the hallway. It almost reminded me of Dante’s Inferno as the gradients of red and rough brush strokes conjured images of flames radiating from its super hot core, which was marked by the brightest shades of red.

EXECUTION I had to think of a lighting solution that would maximize the impression of an “explosion” and freeze the action of the shoes, so I ruled out using an LED. I grabbed a MagMod with Grid from my bag and slapped it on my Nikon SB-910, which was mounted on a light stand and triggered by Yongnuo 622N’s. I went with a grid to prevent spill onto the corners of the painting, which would mitigate the explosion effect. I angled the light at a relatively shallow angle to prevent visible background shadows from the shoes. After a few test shots, we were ready to roll (or throw, in this case). I asked my second shooter to throw the blue pumps in the air as I was hoping to get a shot of the shoes at the brightest area of the painting. I asked him to kneel as low as possible so that he would not be in the frame. After roughly 30 shots, I managed to get a decent shot of the shoes that appear to be floating in midair.

POST PRODUCTION All of my post-processing was done in Lightroom and Radlab. I toned this image by increasing vibrance, saturation, and clarity as well as adding a little more red saturation in the HSL slider section. I deepened the blacks and decreased the highlights just a touch. I also increased the exposure in Lightroom just over a stop as I tend to shoot about a stop underexposed—a common practice among many of us Nikon shooters since a lot of data is retained in the shadows. As a finishing touch, I added a few tweaks in Radlab to give the image slightly more pop.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 35mm f/1.8

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight 54

Yongnuo YN622N Wireless Transmitter/ Receiver

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 400, f/4, 1/160, 1/16 Power

DUY HO www.duyhophotography.com @duyho_

CONCEPT Prior to arriving at the venue, I had done research to know that it was a Chinese Restaurant with white acoustic ceilings, and not particularly significant architecturally. I love creating dramatic first dance photos so I started brainstorming how I might accomplish this given my environment. I wanted to approach it in a away that would minimize the environment, while giving a little sense of the location. The first thing that caught my eye were the chandeliers. I thought if I could isolate those with the couple, the shot could be interesting.

EXECUTION I wanted to keep the chandeliers out of focus so stopping down wasn’t an option to reduce ambient light. Instead I dropped my ISO down to 200, and maxed my shutter speed to sync with my flash at 1/200s. I had my lights set up in way to light the faces of the couple while they danced as well as provide a backlight.I added a grid on my flashes to minimize light spill and keep the beam isolated and gels to get closer to the color of the incandescent light tones of the chandelier. Finally to keep the focus on the couple I borrowed Sam Hurd’s “Ring of Fire” technique and held a 1” copper pipe in front of the lens to drive focus around the couple and create an interesting flaring effect.

POST PRODUCTION I used the radial adjustment in Lightroom to reduce the exposure from the edges of the photo so the couple would really pop in the scene. Aside from that, I used my standard boiler plate editing settings which are based on a VSCO Pack 5 Preset and fine tuned from there.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Introducing several lighting elements to a single frame creates layers of interest. Shooting through a piece of copper pipe produces introduces an unpredictable visual element to the image, and as an added bonus in this particular case, highlights the movement of the couple during their first dance.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

Cheetah Light CL-V860X 56

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment, 1” copper pipe

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/2.5, 1/200, 1/2 CTO, Gridded, 1/8 power

EASTON REYNOLDS www.lureyphotography.com @lureyweddings

CONCEPT The location of this wedding was the Bride’s grandmother’s campground.The Bride’s grandmother and mother both got married on this campground and now it was her turn! We focus on creating unique images that highlight parts of our clients’ stories. That being said, we wanted to capture a unique image at night that would be special to the client. The Bride had spent a ton of time wrapping trees in christmas lights and lining the path from the ceremony to the reception with candle lit lanterns. We made sure to capture an image of the couple on that path with the lights they loved. Then we decided to try something a little different.

EXECUTION After we took the ‘first shot’ of the couple on that beautifully lit path, we pushed ourselves to try to create something unique that no other wedding couple had. We call this the ‘Second Shot’. Since it was dark outside, we held our cell phone flashlight on the couple in order to be able to focus on them. After we locked our focus, we simultaneously pressed the shutter button which triggered our on-camera flash, and jerked the camera from left to right or right to left. We didn’t use rear curtain sync.

POST PRODUCTION In post we cropped the image and cloned the light streaks to fill in missing pieces. We then applied our custom preset we use for all of our images along with some color tweaks and minor dodge and burning.

EDITOR’S COMMENT ‘Dragging the shutter’ is a popular technique mostly used by wedding photographers on the dancefloor, to highlight the movement and general craziness of the dancing. Here, Easton uses the technique instead to frame the subjects.

GEAR

Nikon D610

Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8

Yongnuo YN-560 III Speedlight 58

Yongnuo YN622N Wireless Transmitter/ Receiver

SETTINGS ISO 1250, f/3.5, 1/10, 1/32 Power

ELISHA STEWART www.abbyphotography.ca @abbyphotographyweddings

CONCEPT Sparkling Hill Resort is a stunning venue in British Columbia. The entryway is showered with three stories of Swarovski Crystals that hang from a mirrors on the ceiling. I knew instantly that I wanted to create a mysterious image in the space, where the crystals would look like shooting stars.

EXECUTION This photo looks like it was taken from above. However, I was actually standing right beside the couple (in the top left corner of the frame) and shooting up into the mirror on the ceiling. I knew the secret that if I dialled down, I could make it appear like night and create a romantic mood. My assistant handheld the off camera flash (on a Phottix radio transmitter) to light the couple.

POST PRODUCTION The RAW image came out pretty close to what I wanted but in Photoshop CS6 I used layer work to dodge and burn, increase contrast, and make the couple pop.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Elisha experiments with original framing to create a mysterious and engaging photo that leaves the viewer scratching their heads. Shooting up into a mirror on the ceiling was a clever way to include the hanging crystals, whilst adding intrigue to the photo with an unconventional angle. The direction of the crystals serve as leading lines to the couple, who are given just enough negative space to be framed, and illuminated just enough to draw the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye to the unconventional subject placement.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Canon 580 Ex II Speedlite

Phottix Odin TTL Wireless Flash Transmitter

SETTINGS ISO 800, f/3.5, 1/1200, 1/1 Power HSS

EMIN KULIYEV www.em34.com @emin.kuliyev

CONCEPT I love using gadgets and new technology to add something extra to my images. In this case, I had recently bought a PixelStick, so decided to load an image onto it to create an unusual background behind the couple.

EXECUTION I put my camera on a tripod and asked my assistant to walk around the couple. Then I pressed the shutter button on my camera for a 13 second exposure, giving me time to run to the couple with my Canon 580-EX Speedlite in my hand and press the test button a few times whilst pointing it at the couples’ faces. For the whole exposure, I had enough time to do all that, but I don’t appear in the exposure as I was moving constantly.

POST PRODUCTION I rarely do any editing to my images since I shoot in JPEG. This photo is straight out of camera.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Shooting in JPEG reduces Emin’s options in post processing, with white balance in particular. Whether his decision to leave the couple a cold bluish tone was out of this inability to effectively alter white balance, or a deliberate decision to create separation from the warmth of the background, is anyone’s guess. White balance, much like exposure, is personal preference after all. Whatever the case, gadgets such as the PixelStick provide a somewhat popular technique to transform the mundane into something extraordinary.

GEAR

Sony Alpha a7II

Zeiss Batis 18mm f/2.8

Pixelstick Lightpainting LED

Canon EX-580 Speedlite

Neewer Tripod/ Monopod

SETTINGS ISO 80, f/13, 8s, 1/128 Power

ERIC McCALLISTER www.mccallisterphoto.com @ericmccallister

CONCEPT It was starting to sprinkle, so we thought to go out onto a dock and do a backlit rain shot. As I got it set up, the skies opened and a deluge ensued - you can actually see the rain bouncing off of the dock it was raining so hard.

EXECUTION I used a silver reflective umbrella that the groom held. Behind them by just a few feet aimed up into the umbrella was a Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite, (which thankfully is pretty well weather-sealed), on a Manfrotto Nano stand. I used a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 70mm. The flash was fairly high power at around 1/8-1/4. When aimed into the umbrella it bounces back to illuminate the couple, and also lights the surrounding rain.

POST PRODUCTION Post was very basic in Lightroom - a little leveling, increased exposure +0.80, pulled back highlights, opened shadows and added +65 clarity to give the rain some pop.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT The back-lit rain shot has become a little clichĂŠ amongst veteran wedding photographers, but definitely remains a crowd-pleaser for the majority. Here, Eric elevates the shot by including the foreground pier elements to create leading lines and provide additional interest to the shot.

GEAR

Canon 1DX

Canon 70200mm f/2.8 II

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite

Yongnuo YN560TX Wireless Transmitter

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

Manfrotto Nano Stand

SETTINGS ISO 400, 70mm f/2.8, 1/200, Approx. 1/8 Power

ERIN CHRISMAN www.chrismanstudios.com @chrismanstudios

CONCEPT This photo was taken in the Two-Story Sky Villa (formerly the Hugh Hefner suite) at The Palms Resort in Las Vegas. The bride was getting ready for her wedding on the rooftop of the Palms. When I walked in, I immediately noticed a shiny, metal beaded curtain dividing the bathroom (where the bride was sitting) and the bedroom, and I knew I wanted to try to do something interesting with it.

EXECUTION This photo ultimately took more than two hours to accomplish, because I was working with moving parts, experimenting with my light settings on two different light sources, and having to stop what I was doing several times to go take some more normal photographs of everyone getting ready (in case this one didn’t turn out in the end). I set up my flash behind the bride but more to the front of her head to create some rim light around her. I positioned myself on the outside of the metal curtain, looking into the room where the bride was. There was a big bathtub and hallway between the two rooms. Then I started photographing her through the metal curtain, and quickly realized there was not enough natural light hitting the curtain, because it showed up just as complete blackness. To light up the metal curtain, I laid the Lowel GL-1 Power LED on its side on the bathtub, shining it up at the curtain, but trying to keep it away from shining into my camera. That lit up the curtain, but it still wasn’t interesting enough. So next I tapped the curtain to make the strands of beads flow and criss-cross each other, and that was the final piece to the puzzle. After that, I just had to wait for a good expression on Brittany’s face, and the makeup brush to be in the frame but separated from her face. This photo was 100% candid - I gave no direction to the bride or makeup artist. I’m sure they were wondering what I was doing back there for so long!

POST PRODUCTION We brought up the blacks and increased the saturation, then burned down the entire image to intensify the orange color.

GEAR

Nikon D4

Nikon 85mm f/1.8

Lowel GL-1 Power LED 66

Neewer TT850 flash

Joby GorillaPod SLR Zoom Tripod

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/250, Approx. 1/2 Power

FRANCK BOUTONNET www.franckboutonnet.com @franckboutonnet

CONCEPT I had to do some couple pictures, but the wedding was taking place in the family house and neither the surroundings nor the inside of the house inspired me much. In the end, I decided to try something in the room where the bride was getting ready. The room was really small and full of things, so I decided to try something new and different.

EXECUTION I switched off all the lights in the room, closed the shutters, and asked my second shooter to hold my two mini LED light panels to light my couple. I posed the couple in front of one of the walls. This way, by lighting just their faces with the LED light panels, I got rid of all the distracting elements in the room. Then I put my fairy lights just in front of my lens: the red one slightly on the left part of the lens and the blue one on the right part. I could tell when their faces were right in the middle of each fairy light circle when I couldn’t see their faces anymore while looking through the viewfinder.

POST PRODUCTION Usually I do my best to have the picture straight from the camera as I was imagining it. This way the post-production is more simple. In Adobe Bridge and in Photoshop, I just darkened the background even more to be sure I had only a clean black background. Then I just added a bit more contrast... and that was all folks! :)

EDITOR’S COMMENT With most of Franck’s work characterised by strict photojournalism, this image is a stylish and fun sidestep from his norm. The saturated opposing colours of the LEDs add additional interest to what would have already been an an engaging image. The expert posing, lighting and composition all add up to create an original piece that would leave most photographers confused as to the technique utilised.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Yongnuo YN300 III LED Light 68

Fairy lights

SETTINGS ISO 2000, f/1.8, 1/1250, 2 LEDS

GEOFF WILKINGS www.geoffwilkings.com @gwphotography

CONCEPT This photo was taken in Canmore in the Canadian Rockies. The aim was to create something unique as I photograph in the Rockies quite a bit. I already had my safe shots which were awesome and pleasing but I wanted something extra for me. Sun-flare is something I’ve always loved and I’m drawn to bold colours and especially yellow. The aim was to create sun flare, mood, movement, emotion and scenery while framing it in one go with no composites. I’ve got nothing against composites but I really aim to shoot in-camera and move on.

EXECUTION I always expose for what I have in my mind. Often I’m asked what’s the correct exposure. Well the correct exposure is whatever you want it to be - that is the correct exposure. In this scene I knew the north aspect mountain slopes would be too dark if stopped down too much given the shaded slopes. This was a similar case with the shadow side to the couple. So I exposed to balance for the highlights and shadows but most importantly, stopped down as much as possible to create the mood of the shot. I then sprayed the front of the lens with a fine mist of water so that when the light from the flash hit it, sun-flare would be created. I used the MagMod Grid for light direction control and had my assistant hold the light close to the lens with the Full CTO gel to give the yellow effect. I fired a few frames and created emotion within my couple who were truly warmed up by then. Taking a shot when a couple aren’t emotionally empowered is a waste of time.

POST PRODUCTION I post processed this in Lightroom 6 using just basic adjustment in the control panel i.e. contrast, blacks etc and Totally Rad light purple effect within a Lightroom preset. Nothing much. I did clean it up in Photoshop i.e. branches, long grass going through their hands, but really it was just simple distractions that I was taking out.

GEAR

Canon 1DX

Canon 70200mm f/2.8 II

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite 70

Mini water spray bottle

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment + Half CTO Gel

SETTINGS ISO 2000, f/1.8, 1/1250, 1/2 Power

HEDRIAN NGABITO www.theuppermost.com @hedrianngabito

CONCEPT The idea was to take a portait of the bride and groom and include the beautiful ambience of the room and the interesting panoamic picture on the wall. To add additional interest to the photo, I decided to create a reflection too.

EXECUTION I metered for the ambient light, then added a backlight by placing my flash light on a stand behind the couple, and triggering it remotely. Then I put a small pocket mirror right in front of the lens to create a reflection, adding another dimension of mystery to the final image.

POST PRODUCTION For post processing, i did some adjustments for brightness and contrast. I also did a little bit of exposure masking around the couple to bring up the shadows and make a brighter area around them. This way the couple’s faces become brighter and your eye is drawn to the centre of the image.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Using the adjustment brush set to Exposure in Lightroom is an effective way to selectively lighten (dodge) or darken (burn) areas of an image to help direct the viewer’s eye. Using a mirror to reflect areas of an image is an interesting technique, and Hedrian’s decision to ‘flip’ only the lower portion of this image, (neglecting the upper wall), in addition to the already ‘reflected’ elements of the wall’s pattern, creates a confusing but engaging final picture, whose technique is not immediately obvious.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 35mm f/2

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight

SETTINGS ISO 400, f/4, 1/200

HENDRA LESMANA www.cheesenclick.com @cheesenclick

CONCEPT During the bride’s make up I was looking at my her eyes, her eyes and noticed that they were really big - a rare thing for an Indonesian born Chinese. Suddenly the idea for this frame crossed my mind. Some photographers have done a similar photo before with a silhouette of the groom reflected in the bride’s eye, so I decided to make my image original by changing the bride with a pair of wedding shoes.

EXECUTION I stuck the shoes to the pane of a window using small reuseable glue tacks. There was enough light coming through the window to provide a backlight for the shoes. As for the bride’s eye, I used my Nikon 105mm f/2.8 macro lens (shot at f/5.6) and an on-camera flash bounced off the ceiling to distribute the light.

POST PRODUCTION I used Lightroom to process the Raw file, cropped the image a little bit to fit the frame I wanted and a then tweaked it a bit more using Photoshop.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Seeing this image for the first time we immediately assume the bride’s shoes have are falling through the wait - a possibility perhaps if Hendra had had unlimited time, but in the interests of practicality and control, he chose the smart option of using glue! By aligning the brightest point of the image (the window pane) with the darkest point (the bride’s pupil), the tiny shoes are highlighted as the primary subject of the image, despite the visual dominance of the eye in the frame.

GEAR

Nikon D3s

Nikon 105mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight

SETTINGS ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/100, 1/16 Power, zoomed to 35mm

HIRAM TRILLO www.hiramtrillo.com @hiramtrillo

CONCEPT The space where the wedding was taking place was very small and intimate. However we had problems getting the couple away from everyone and they wanted at least one image of the two of them alone. I had seen this closet in the bridal suite while capturing her getting ready shots so I decided to take the couple in there away from everyone and captured this image.

EXECUTION Inside the closet, I told the groom to hold the speedlight and point it towards the back-wall of the closet to create a backlight and used the bounce back to fill in their faces. Then I took a secondary exposure from a chandelier outside of the closet to create the bokeh effect via an in-camera double exposure.

POST PRODUCTION This photo like most of my imagery has very little post processing. I aim at getting things ready in camera so I’m not fixing mistakes after. I use Adobe Camera Raw to make sure my camera settings are respected and that the colors are from my camera settings and not from Adobe. Then in LR I just push sharpening a bit and saturate the colors. The reddish/orange color of the image comes from the second exposure.

EDITOR’S COMMENT For such a beautiful image that looks like it was taken during golden hour on a rainy day to have actually been taken in a closet (then exposed upon with an image of a chandelier), really is impressive, and highlights Hiram’s expert ability to create something out of nothing. Images such as this which could be recreated almost anywhere remind us that our only limit in creativity is our own imagination.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 2470mm f/2.8 II

Cheetah Light CL-V860X Speedlight 76

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 250, f/3.5, 1/160, 1/64 Power

IAIN GOMES www.gomesphotography.co.uk @iaingomes

CONCEPT I like to use the time during the wedding breakfast to take the couple out and get the dramatic shots. This particular photo the couple were walking back to the table after going outside for some time alone. You can actually see their guests in the background.

EXECUTION As the couple walked back I asked my Assistant to quickly follow them and to ask them to stop momentarily. I laid down low to get the reflection of the lights on the floor and quickly dialled in a stop under to get the vibrant colours. My Assistant was stood on the right, facing the bride with a Canon 600 EX-RT flash on a light pole, diffused with the Westcott 65cm Rapidbox. I wanted to keep the image looking warm so a 1/4 CTO gel was perfect. We were using walkie talkies so I didn’t have to shout instructions to the couple - instead I asked my Assistant to ask the couple to kiss.This took no more than a minute out of the Bride and Groom’s wedding day.

POST PRODUCTION I actually do very little in the way of post processing. My Assistant was far enough out of the photo so that wasn’t an issue A touch of contrast and a tweak of the tone curve and the image was ready.

EDITOR’S COMMENT The fact that this image was taken with almost no interaction between the couple and Iain makes it all the more impressive. Respecting the wedding couple’s time alone, as well as the natural flow of their wedding day, whilst still managing to produce stellar images such as this is the sign of a seasoned professional.

GEAR

Canon 1DX

Canon 2470mm f/2.8 II

Canon 600EXRT Speedlite 78

Westcott Rapid Box Octa XL

1/4 CTO filter gel

SETTINGS ISO 800, f/3.2, 1/200, 1/4 Power

JACOB HANNAH www.hannahphoto.com @hannahphotography_vt

CONCEPT The couple chose her parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; secluded house in the woods of Saranac Lake, New York because it was a place that had a special meaning for them. They had mentioned to us before the wedding that they really wanted to take some photos by the pond with all the lights they had strung around the property. It rained for most of their wedding day, but fortunately they were game for going out in the rain for portraits. My wife, Megan, and I talked about ideas for the shot and decided that something wide and backlit with the rain and the light reflecting in the pond would be the best option.

EXECUTION We had a full CTO gel and a MagMod Sphere on the flash. Megan was precariously perched behind the couple, hidden from view, and holding the light about five feet behind them. Normally we would place the light further back from the couple, but there was a sharp slope and more water on the other side of them. The sphere helped spread out the light evenly, illuminating the raindrops and even wrapping around the couple a little. We used the full CTO gel to match the color temperature of the bistro lights hanging around the pond. I set my ISO to 6400 and shutter speed to 1/60 to pick up some of the ambient light from the bistro lights. I stopped down to f/3.5 to keep things sharp without losing too much ambient light.

POST PRODUCTION In Lightroom I adjusted the color temperature to add a little more warmth, added some contrast, and dodged the couple up a little. I also cloned out a couple of distracting reflections from the flash on the water.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 35mm f/1.8

Nikon SB-900 Speedlight

MagMod Flash Modifier 80

Sphere attachment

CTO gel

SETTINGS ISO 6400, f/3.5, 1/60, 1/64 Power

JAMIE IVINS www.redwoodandrye.com @redwoodandryestudio

CONCEPT This photo was taken in a stairwell at Aldrich Mansion in Warwick, RI. As I entered the stairwell while scouting I was immediately inspired by the grandness of the space. I knew I wanted to capture something here but before working all of the angles I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sure what it was yet. I began to walk around and photograph the space at different angles and at focal lengths. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until I zoomed out to 16mm from this angle that I knew this was the spot.

EXECUTION Since there was a giant window behind me, there was quite a bit of ambient light in the stairwell. I knew I wanted a dramatic look so I first set the sync speed on my camera to kill as much ambient as possible, and ensure my exposure was able to capture the details in the chandelier without the lightbulbs being completely blown out. From there it became about building the composition of the final image. To utilize both sets of stairs, I decided to place the groom on the bottom half of the staircase and asked the bride to walk down the stairs to meet him. I decided to set up a Yongnuo YN560-IV flash with a 1/2 CTO MagGel + MagGrid to separate the groom from the darkness of the alcove and give him a rim light. I placed another Yongnuo YN560-IV with 1/2 CTO MagGel + MagGrid in the doorway in the upper left of the frame to highlight the bride walking down the stairs. The fill light on the bride was provided by the ambient window light coming from behind me.

POST PRODUCTION The chandeliers, ambient scene, bride, and groom were each edited as individual smart object layers in PS and masked together. This allowed me to work on portions of the image as a RAW file and not sacrifice any quality while achieving the overall vision for the photograph. Once the individual layers were edited and blended together, I then flattened the image, removed the light stands that were visible in the frame using a combination of the content aware lasso and clone stamp tool. I then flattened the image one last time and used the Transform tool in Photoshop to correct the lens distortion caused by the 16mm lens. After the lines were straight I saved the photo and opened it in Lightroom for some final dodging and burning before exporting from Lightroom.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Tokina 1628mm f/2.8

Yongnuo YN-560 IV Speedlight 82

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment and 1/2 CTO gel x2

SETTINGS ISO 800, f/4, 1/160, 16mm, 1/16 Power

JASON VINSON www.vinsonimages.com @vinsonimages_jason

CONCEPT The thing I love most about ring photography is how quickly elements in the frame can fall out of focus. It’s a uniquely attractive feature of macro photography that should be taken advantage of during the wedding day. I use this with elements such as water glasses, sparkly table cloths, and even Christmas lights. When I first got my Flex LED from Westcott, I instantly knew I wanted to try and use it for a ring shot.

EXECUTION The light is a flexible 12”x12” square that is covered with orange and blue lights that can be used to adjust the color temperature. How I created this look was by adjusting the color to a point where the orange and blue lights were equally as bright. Then I shaped the adjustable square to form a type of semi-circular tunnel, and lastly I placed the rings at the very front of the tunnel. I was able to get the rings to stand upright by utilizing a small piece of putty that I always keep in my bag. In order to get the lights from the tunnel to be in the frame, everything is on the very edge of a table. This allowed me to shoot lower than the rings. Lastly, I simply made sure the rings were as centered as possible and used the lights to create a nice frame.

POST PRODUCTION Post processing for this image was relatively simple. After applying my normal custom preset, all I had to do was dial in my exposure and white balance. And finally, I did some slight straightening with the crop tool.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 105mm f/2.8

Westcott Flex Bicolor LED Light

SETTINGS ISO 100, f/3.3, 1/1000, Approx. 1/2 Power

JEFF ONEAL www.theuppermost.com @ onealz

CONCEPT This is an engagement photo session that I took one day before their actual wedding day. The picture was taken in Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia. We arrived at the location quite late from our planned schedule. It was around 10 minutes before sunset. The weather, sky, and light were amazing.

EXECUTION I was taking a break and leaning back on our car, and saw this great side light on the other side of the car. I thought the car windows could be used as a good frame for the couple. I asked them to move to the other side of the car and just relax and enjoy the morning sun for a moment. While they were chatting, I took a few shots quick shots, then decided to add the flash on a stand just to provide some additional illumination. To avoid the distracting car interior on the right side of the photo, I covered half of my lens using a water bottle, This had the pleasant side-effect of producing a bokeh effect as well.

POST PRODUCTION I performed just basic color correcting via Adobe Camera Raw and nothing else.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT The colours, bokeh, lighting, composition and posing of this shot are all in perfect balance. Jeff chose to shoot from the interiror of a car to take advantage of the inherent framing of a window, then used an object close to hand as a way to mask out unwanted elements of the image. The bokeh which leads to and highlights the couple is an additional pleasing element to the final image.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 2470mm f/2.8 86

Nikon SB-900 Speedlight

SETTINGS ISO 500, f/4, 1/100, 1/32 Power

JOANNE MARINO www.imaginephotoaz.com @imaginephotoaz

CONCEPT When this couple booked their session we had no idea the remnants of a hurricane would be blowing across the Arizona desert the day of their shoot. The gentleman in the photo brought his Harley Davidson motorcycle to the shoot, and was concerned about it getting rained on. They almost canceled, but we talked them into it knowing how amazing the skies were going to look. The wind was whipping their hair wildly, and mixed with the clouds and rain, it just gave a raw, somewhat dangerous vibe, which adds to the overall emotion of the photograph. We were able to wrap up just before the downpour started, and returned home with some fantastic photographs.

EXECUTION We had one flash with a MagMod Grid behind the couple for a rim light, and one flash with a MagMod Grid and MagMod sphere in front, camera right. We framed the shot in a way that showcased the scenery, but still kept the couple as the focus. It was a pretty straight forward two light setup, but it all works in concert to create a really dramatic final photograph.

POST PRODUCTION We used our normal Lightroom recipe we put together over the years, did some dodging and burning, added a little color to the clouds, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about it.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Choosing to use a combination of the front (key) light and a rear (rim) light is essential for not only subject separation in this photo but also the highlighting of the rain droplets. By shooting at a moderate 1/125 shutter speed, the motion of the rain is still apparent, lending to the energy of the final image.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 24mm f/1.4 II

Yongnuo YN560IV Speedlight x2 88

MagMod MagGrid Flash Modifier

MagSphere

SETTINGS ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/125, 1/1 Power

KATHRYN KRUEGER www.kathrynkrueger.com @ kathrynkruegerphotography

CONCEPT The Father of Bride let us know early on during the dinner he had a surprise fireworks show for the bride and groom. We knew we wanted the fireworks and the couple in the shot and that it had to be clean and ideally well composed. I wanted the faces of the couple in the shot if possible.

EXECUTION During the short toast prior to the fireworks my assistant and I worked on the best settings for the upcoming fireworks show. I did not want to be wide open so I stopped down to f/5 to ensure the fireworks were not too soft in the background. ISO was set at 2500, enough to let in the light of the string lights, and I originally set the shutter at 1/20s. The flash became the variable we changed as needed. I started on manual at the lowest setting of 1/128. After a test shot it was clear the flash needed to go up, not a full stop, but a bit more. We ended up with the flash at 1/128 +7 to properly light the couple but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need a ton of light as the high ISO and dragged shutter let in a lot of light. Once that fell into place I noticed the shutter was too slow and the fireworks looked sad and camera-shakey, so I bumped the shutter up to 1/40 to stop the light from blurring so much. From there I worked the composition based on the fireworks and when the bride turned from watching the fireworks to embracing her new husband, I shot as much as I could. In the end, this image, with the pole balancing the image on the left with the unusual fireworks spray was the clear winner.

POST PRODUCTION This image came out of camera fairly close to the exposure I needed. There was smoke that distracted at the bottom of the frame that I burned down with an individual brush in Lightroom. I brought the high midpoints of exposure down a bit to give the fireworks more dimension and individually darkened some. There was also some lens distortion and the pole was not straight on the left, so I used lens correction to ensure the pole and the railing at the bottom were straight.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 2470mm f/2.8 II

Yongnuo YN-560 III Speedlight

Yongnuo YN622C Wireless Transmitter/Receiver

SETTINGS ISO 2500, f/5, 1/40, 1/128 Power +07

KEITH LEE www.keithleestudios.com @keithleestudios

CONCEPT Whenever possible, I always like to do an ‘ending’ portrait at night of my wedding couple. Sometimes we do it inside, sometimes it’s outside... it just depends on what I find and what inspires me. In this case, the reception took place in a hotel and I walked around the lobby with my second photographer and assistant looking for anything that caught my eye or sparked an idea. We tried a couple different concepts which would have worked but I considered those ideas to be pretty conservative and I always want to challenge myself to come up with something different and unique for my clients. That’s when I noticed a fireplace with white glass rocks in the hotel lobby. The overall location of the fireplace didn’t support the idea of executing a portrait with the couple so instead, I opted to do a double exposure.

EXECUTION Execution was surprisingly simple. I took a handful of images of the fire until I was happy with one that left enough negative space to place my clients in. Note: you have to be mindful of what ISO to use since that’s the one variable (i.e. out of ISO, aperture, shutter speed and the lens) you cannot deviate from when trying to combine multiple images in the camera. While I used a 35mm lens to capture the portrait of the couple, I used a 50mm first to photograph the fire. From there, I used my second photographer and assistant to pose and test for the second image of the double exposure which included a flash with a 1/8 grid (to keep the light from spreading everywhere) and placed it on a light stand about 4-5 feet behind the subjects at stomach level. I still wanted some of the ambient light on the subjects so it wasn’t a complete silhouette. Once I had everything dialed in, I had my wedding couple join us for the final product. It took me about a minute or two to pose them and after that, I took one image. It really was the perfect way to end the evening.

POST PRODUCTION Editing the image was pretty quick and straight forward, which is one of the benefits of a wellplanned and executed image (trust me, it doesn’t always work out that way). I applied my preset, burned out a couple areas I didn’t want to show and that was about it.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Canon 50mm f/1.2

Canon 600EXRT Speedlite 92

HonlPhoto 1/8 Inch Honeycomb Speed Grid

SETTINGS ISO 1000, f/5, 1/200, 1/128 Power

MOSHE ZUSMAN www.moshezusman.com @moshezusman

CONCEPT The concept of the image was to pose the girls to perfection, light the group with as much flattering light as possible and create a dramatic scene, using the lights we had.

EXECUTION Two speedlites were camera left and right hand held by two assistants way up high. Then there was a third speedlite laying on the table behind the bride, creating a rim light on her and the brides maid next to her.

POST PRODUCTION I carried out very subtle skin smoothing and a tiny bit of shadow reduction from the walls in Lightroom.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Posing large groups is a challenging and somewhat intimidating process for most wedding photographers. The pressure is increased when the group happens to be bridesmaids, with female posing bringing along additional challenges to create a flattering outcome. The two speedlites on either side of the camera provide a relatively even distribution of light across the subjects in the group, but it’s the posing of the bridesmaids’ heads and bodies which direct the viewer’s eye to the central subject of the image. The effect of the rim light on the bride is subtle, but no doubt also serves to spill some light on the white shutters in the background to further highlight the star of the photo.

GEAR

Canon 1D Mark IV

Canon 14mm f/2.8 II

Canon 580EX Speedlite x3

PocketWizard Plus III Tranceiver

SETTINGS ISO 1000, f/5,1/40, 1/32 Power

NEIL REDFERN www.neilredfern.com @neilredfern

CONCEPT I always like to try and create one at least one unique bride and groom portrait at each wedding that I photograph. I often do this by using creative techniques but everything is always achieved in-camera. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d bought the Pixelstick a few weeks earlier and had been playing around with using it at weddings but this is by far my favourite shot. As the bride and groom look as if they are stood in fire, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want them to look too happy or romantic, so I just asked them to remain still and stare straight ahead.

EXECUTION This photograph is a 15 second exposure so for the image to work as I wanted, with as little ambient light getting on to the sensor as possible, I needed to wait until it was dark outside and then find an area near the venue which was extremely dark. With the camera on a tripod, I asked the couple to remain as still as possible whilst I walked around them with the Pixelstick. I counted to 13, and then just before the shutter closed, I manually lit them with my Nikon SB-900 flash, which I triggered handheld. Without the flash the couple would have been in silhouette so it was important that I had the correct flash output. My only fear was that one of them would be blinking at that exact moment! I really like that they had no idea what the final result would look like whilst I was doing this. I showed them the image on the back of the camera and they were extremely happy with it.

POST PRODUCTION The final image is very similar to the RAW file. The main thing which I did in post is clone some extra flames in to the right hand part of the frame in Photoshop to fill in an area which I had missed. Other than that I just increased the brightness and saturation slightly in Lightroom to make the image more vibrant.

GEAR

Nikon D810

Nikon 2470mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-900 Speedlight 96

Pixelstick Lightpainting LED

Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod

SETTINGS ISO 100, f/14, 15s, 1/8 Power

PASQUALE MINNITI www.photo-4u.it @photo4u_studio

CONCEPT I found an interesting mirror in the groom’s bedroom during his preparations. In order to remove all the things that were being reflected in the mirror, I needed to create total darkness in the room, and only light the groom from the front.

EXECUTION I placed the groom with the Ice Light in his hands in a vertical position between his face and the mirror. By stopping down I was able to kill all the ambient light except for the Ice Light, leaving just the silhouette and the reflections. I wanted to keep my ISO as low as possible in case I needed to recover any shadow detail in post. I directed the subject to look up at the centre most reflection of his eyes in the mirror and moved him forward and back to have the other lateral reflections in the perfect position. I placed my focus point where his eyes appear right in the centre.

POST PRODUCTION I used Camera Raw for a basic and simple post production. The shoot was 90% perfect in-camera. I just cropped the picture at the end of the mirror since I wanted to keep the image as close to the actual scene as possible. I reduced the light spread from the subject and I changed the color temperature of the light from cold to warm.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Stopping down to ‘kill’ ambient light is a powerful tool in the wedding photographer’s arsenal, especially when stood in front of a reflective object such as this mirror. Shooting at a low ISO allows Pasquale the greatest flexibility in post production, and with Nikon full frame sensors renowned for their dynamic range capabilities and broad shadow recovery, he is able to open up any shadows in the subject’s features with minimal noise or visual artifacts.

GEAR

Nikon D4S

Nikon 105mm f/2.8

Westcott Ice Light I

SETTINGS ISO 2500, f/3.5, 1/300, 1/1 Power

PETE FARRELL www.pixiesinthecellar.co.uk @pixiesinthecellar

CONCEPT This tree is iconic at the Heaton House Farm wedding venue in the UK. It’s floodlit from the venue side and is always shot from that direction. I’ve always preferred the detailing and shadowing of backlighting so I took the unpopular decision to shoot the back of the tree. I wanted to create something simple and representative of their day in an artistic and iconic style. Everything was planned and test-executed before the bride and groom came out. The temperature was 1 degree with a 40 mile per hour gusting wind, so rather horrific conditions for the bride in a light, delicate dress.

EXECUTION I placed my Nikon D4 on a tripod as the exposure was 10 seconds. I lay down in wet grass in almost freezing conditions too - you have to suffer for your art, right?! The remote Nikon SB-910 (with CTO) was placed on the floor pointing at the tree to create a silhouette of the couple, and my partner walked behind the tree spinning the Pixelstick. The shot worked first time luckily as it was so cold. The gelled flash and D4 set to tungsten enabled the fab contrasting colours of the tree and sky to emerge.

POST PRODUCTION There wasn’t too much editing in reality. A few distant lights from the venue needed removing, the ground was darkened slightly and the white balance shifted a little, plus I increased the saturation and contrast. I prefer to get it as correct as possible in the camera.

GEAR

Nikon D4

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight

Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 & Flex TT5 Flash Transmitter/ Receiver 100

Pixelstick Lightpainting LED

CTO filter gel

SETTINGS ISO 100, f/5, 10s, TTL

PYE JIRSA www.linandjirsa.com @linandjirsa

CONCEPT During a wedding mood board review, the bride told me that she loved golden hour shots, but who doesn’t. When they began planning their wedding day, the bride and groom scheduled a 30 minute Golden Hour photo session. Then on the day, like most weddings, things didn’t run on time. Although there was an stunning golden hour on their wedding day, the bride had missed it - she had an outfit change for the reception, and because of an unfortunate turn of events, she was late to the planned photo shoot and the sun was gone. So we thought, “why not recreate golden hour?”.

EXECUTION I had my awesome lighting assistant set up the Profoto B1 and put two Color Temperature Orange (CTO) Gels on it. Why make the light so orange? Because as the sun sets, its color frequency shifts to more orange and red hues because of how far the light travels through the atmosphere. I then instructed my assistant to take the B1 about 200ft away behind some trees, identical to where the sun had just set from their point of view. Why so far? Because the strobe had to light everything the sun would have lit if it were still above the horizon. That means all the trees, architecture, and every significant object in the frame had to have a natural ‘sunlight’ on them.

POST PRODUCTION Using the SLR Lounge Lightroom Presets we applied our Signature Color Preset and with one-click it was Print Ready!

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 70200mm f/2.8 II

Profoto B1 500 Flash

102

CTO filter gel

SETTINGS ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/200, 1/1 Power

RAHUL KHONA www.f5blog.co.uk @rahulkhona

CONCEPT This photo was from an engagement shoot in Iceland. We were praying to the gods that we would see the Northern Lights, and we had heard from a few of the locals in Iceland that they would be out later at night. So we made our way from the city to Thingvellir National Park. As we were driving there, the Northern Lights appeared so we found a safe spot to pull over and start shooting.

EXECUTION This photo took a few attempts to get right. I had to factor in the ambient from the Northern Lights, so I knew a slow shutter was required, and then I had to work out the flash power to make sure my couple were lit. I used a tripod for the camera, and tried different shutter speeds until I got to 13 seconds which gave me a great exposure for the Lights. Then I did a few flash bursts on the couple, starting at 1/64 power, until their exposure was finally correct at 1/16. Once I had the flash and the ambient correct in my camera, I just told the couple to hold still as possible, but as they were in the dark anyway it was ok if they moved slightly. I set the camera on a timer so there was no shake from me pressing the shutter button, and then once the camera fired, 4 seconds into the exposure I ran into the scene and manually popped the flash on my couple,and ran back out.

POST PRODUCTION I edited this image in Lightroom, I try to get the image as correct as possible in-camera, so my adjustments are minimal thereafter. I apply my custom preset to get my desired look, by pushing the shadows and pulling the blacks in, and applying a slight tone curve. I used the local adjustment brush tool to boost the colour and contrast of the Northern Lights, and finally I to cloned out a slight red light trail from my flashâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s LED.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark IV

Canon 24mm f/1.4 II

Phottix Mitros Flash Tranceiver

104

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 3200, 24mm, f/8, 13s, 1/16 Power

RALF CZOGALLIK www.eppel.nl @ralfczogallik

CONCEPT This was taken in an old factory in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, that has since been converted into a nightclub. The couple chose to do a photoshoot there. I saw the wood in combination with the hallway and I thought that this would be a cool contrast. I really love separating the bride and the groom in the photo because it enhances the tension of the love as a couple.

EXECUTION I posed the bride first and made sure my settings for the ambient light were okay. Then I popped the flash to see if the right amount of light was hitting the bride. After a couple of changes I found the right settings. I concentrated first on the bride to make sure she was okay and relaxed with her pose. I then decided to add the groom into the photo but was not sure how he could fit in it without being in very bad light. I wanted them to tell a little story like the bride is waiting for the love of her life and suddenly he appears in the shady blue light... or something like that. You fill in the words for your own story :) Just a silhouette was not enough so I decided to add the blue gel on the flash to contrast the yellow of the wood. After a few adjustments I found the right settings for the groomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flash as well. I combined the two together in one frame and there it was. After a couple of trials in this setting I found the right one.

POST PRODUCTION Since I controlled almost every bit of the image I could set up everything exactly how I wanted. If the basics are good then almost no post production is needed. Of course I enhanced the blue a bit and a did a little bit of dodging and burning too. That was all!

GEAR

Canon 1DX Mark II

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite

106

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

SETTINGS ISO 1600, f/2, 1/640, 1/2 Power for bride, 1/1 Power for groom

RAPH NOGAL www.raphnogal.com @raphnogal

CONCEPT My couple got engaged in New York City so they flew us out from Toronto to NYC as it was important for them to incorporate the location as part of their story. For this particular shot, we wanted to capture Times Square and some iconic parts of NYC, such as the taxi cabs! Without being too literal we wanted the idea of the couple kissing in the back of the cab, while the city (and more specifically Times Square) was visible in the background. We hailed a cab and gave the cabbie some cash to wait around while we executed the concept. It felt super rushed as he was parked at the side of the road, but we got it done!

EXECUTION I had to step down the ambient light as the billboards in the background were extremely bright! I would have liked to bring them down even more, but the street behind the cab would have been completely dark. We were on a time crunch and so I chose an in-between option. I played around with the positioning of the flash and tried two different positions to see how the light was going to hit my couple. I settled on jamming the flash between the driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seat and the back door. This held the flash in place and gave me the best option for lighting them without unpleasant shadows falling on their faces. I composed the frame, fired a test shot to get the flash power right (I usually start low power and increase if needed). I gave the couple some instructions and encouragement and the shot was done!

POST PRODUCTION Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not a huge fan of Photoshopping my images too much, but of course there were global adjustments done as well as cloning out the flash. I like contrasty and punchy images so I always try to stay true to that look. I increased the contrast globally as well as brought in some shadow details. I increased the clarity a bit and added a slight vignette to the overall image. I also warmed up the background as it had a nasty green cast.

GEAR

Nikon D800

Nikon 2470mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight

108

Yongnuo YN-622N Wireless Transmitter/ Receiver

SETTINGS ISO 500, f/4.5, 1/60, Approx. 1/32 Power

ROSS HARVEY www.rossharvey.com @rossharvy

CONCEPT The bride had asked for a ‘creative night time photo’ during preparations, so I kept my eyes open during wedding day for potential spots. When dusk arrived, the hanging lanterns on a great oak tree illuminated. Perfect. Not perfect: the tree was surrounded by mess. Old gas canisters were now leant against the tree and an old table covered in rubbish from the BBQ sat under its shade.

EXECUTION I needed to do two things. 1) Cut out as much of the ambient as possible to hide the disaster zone of mess that surrounded the couple. 2) Let as much ambient light in as I could since the lanterns were illuminated by small LEDs. Very little power. OCF is about finding the right balance and knowing what you can achieve in post processing. Understanding your sensor’s dynamic range is crucial. Having found the balance (by using a drunk groomsman as the dummy subject) I composed the shot in such a way to cut out as much of the surrounding mess as I could. Oftentimes less is more. I only needed a single bare flash (positioned at the solar plexus level) behind the couple which I triggered with my Phottix Odins. As I was using a high ISO to capture enough details of the lanterns the flash was set as low as possible; 1/128.

POST PRODUCTION Post production included the usual dodging and burning in Lightroom. Some lanterns were brightened up (the farthest), and some were turned down (the closest). I removed two things: the power lines that ran across the face of various lanterns and branches that were slightly illuminated by the lanterns themselves. The more mysterious the image, the better!

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikkor 35mm f/1.4

Nikon SB-910 Speedlight 110

Phottix Odin Transmitter

Manfrotto Nano Stand

SETTINGS ISO 3200, f/2. 1/250, 1/128 Power

RYAN ZHANG www.chrismanstudios.com @ryanzwb

CONCEPT This photo was taken at a golf course at the end of the wedding. I saw there was a 4-face clock tower outside of the venue, and I decided I wanted to use one side of the clock to frame the couple.

EXECUTION I climbed up the small clock tower and used two faces of the clock as my foreground element to this photo. I told the couple to walk further away from the clock tower and asked my assistant to light them up with Lowel GL-1 video light. In order to frame them within one face of the clock, I shot through glass to have a reflection from one of the clocks.

POST PRODUCTION I made some white balance corrections and boosted some of the contrast of the photo using Lightroom. I also used an adjustment brush in Photoshop to tone down the highlights. After that, I sharpened the photo a little.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Being able to take a photo that leaves fellow wedding photographers baffled as to the techniques employed must be the pinnacle for any veteran of the industry. Here, Ryan has masterfully created a dramatic and stylish image, employing several techniques at the same time to create something that resembles something akin to an optical illusion. As if including the existing clock face in the left portion of the image wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t complicated enough, Ryan uses the third, reflected face to provide balance and frame the couple. The warm tones of the GL-1, provides further contrast of the couple with the monotone of the rest of the picture.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 35mm f/1.8

112

Lowel GL-1 Power LED Light

SETTINGS ISO 6400, f/4, 1/400, Approx. 1/2 Power

SIGIT PRASETIO www.theuppermost.com @sigpras

CONCEPT With this shot we wanted to create a circlular lighting effect using steel wool, and also get the reflection of the bride and groom in a little natural pond on the beach. Using steel wool is a cool technique and we love to try it.

EXECUTION First I put the camera on a tripod, then prefocused on the spot where the bride and groom would stand, and set the camera to manual focusing mode. Then I framed the subject, and positioned my assistant to spin the steel wool far enough away from the bride and groom for their safety. I chose to use a low ISO to control the noise which is usually produced in long exposure mode. I set the shutter to stay open for about 15 seconds to give the assistant enough time to spin the steel wool. Regarding the steel wool (which is also known as wire wool or wire sponge), itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a bundle of very fine and flexible sharp-edged steel filaments, composed of long steel fibers of varying degrees of fineness that are matted together. The coarser grades are used to remove paint and other finishes, the finer grades for polishing or smoothing a finished surface. Steel wool is used a lot in kitchens for cleaning and polishing metals, especially aluminum utensils, it can easily found at the home supply store. The assistant put a little amount of the steel wool on a wire with a ballast (a rock), and set it alight it with a lighter. As the wool was spinning I shot about five or six frames whilst triggering the off camera flash to light the subjects and this one was my favorurite.

POST PRODUCTION Post processing was just my normal simple retouching. Also I lightened up the steel wool effect and increased the exposure in the darker areas to balance the image.

GEAR

Nikon D750

Nikon 28mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight

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Manfrotto Compact Light Tripod

Steel wool

SETTINGS ISO 160, f/14, 15s, 1/1 Power

STEVEN ROONEY www.stevenrooneyphotography.com @sterooney

CONCEPT It was a tree I had only heard of in legends. 8 feet tall and made entirely of purple fairy lights. And what’s more, the branches were flexible! I played around a little with the camera settings and took a few frames without a flash. The bokeh I was seeing was incredible and I could fill the whole frame with it with a little bending of the branches of the tree, out of sight of the hotel staff! I wanted to create an image which included the couple and the bokeh.

EXECUTION I set up a couple of Speedlites and was ready to go. I have several images of this scene - some with a key light, some without and a whole load of different compositions. For this particular frame I had one bare flash 6 ft behind the couple pointed towards the camera. Building the image I could see the couple in the frame on my LCD screen but wanted them to pop out a bit more. I asked one of the bridesmaids to use a mist spray water bottle (99p from a DIY shop) in front of the flash. I took a frame, tweaked some branches, took another frame and so on until I had filled the frame with the lights, many of which were right up against the lens.

POST PRODUCTION In post I used Lightroom to emphasise the bokeh and colour on different parts of the frame and removed the bridesmaid’s hand which was showing near the couple. In hindsight the flash power was too strong once the mist spray was added, but hey, still one of my favourite frames of all time.

EDITOR’S COMMENT The ‘backlit silhouette shot’ is a useful trick up the sleeves of many a smart wedding photographer, but elevating it by using additional elements is the challenge. Here, Steven gives the background story on how images like that aren’t usually the result of one lucky click, but rather, several attempts, each one building upon the last to create a final image that’s as mesmerising as it is mysterious.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite x2 116

Pink gel filter

Wwater spray bottle

SETTINGS ISO 320, f/3.2, 1/200, 3/4 Power

STEVE WISE www.27creative.com.au @wisey_27creative

CONCEPT This bride and groom had their wedding reception inside the old abandoned Midland Railyards outside Perth, Western Australia. This was the view looking away from their reception area down the warehouse, so we definitely had to make use of it. What a space to practice their first dance together...

EXECUTION We had some beautiful symmetry at work down the centre of this section of the warehouse so I placed the couple dead centre. Unfortunately they were getting lost in the shadows and blending in with the background, so we had to light them up. With the Elinchrom Rangerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1200Ws output we had the range to reach them from a fair distance (i.e. outside the frame), and with the snoot attachment we could direct the controlled light source only at them and punch them out of the darkness. My assistant would have been at least 40m away with the light and the narrow beam lit them up beautifully as they danced away. It work a treat... especially with the diagonal shafts of light playing in from the skylights.

POST PRODUCTION Very minimal post production was carried out on this image - we got it pretty much spot on in camera. We just performed some general lifting of the shadows in the background to bring out the scene, and also brought out the highlights in her dress - otherwise what you see is what we saw on the day : )

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Shooting with a wide angle lens at smaller apertures can mean the subject being lost in the frame. This is exacerbated when the image contains multiple elements of interest, such as the warehouse architecture in this case. However, Steve uses the leading lines of the structure to his advantage, and with the addition of some light from the strobe, the subject becomes the feature of the image without dominating the frame.

GEAR

Canon 1Ds MkIII

Canon 1635mm f/2.8 II

Elinchrom Ranger Quadra Hybrid AS RX 118

Elinchrom Ranger RX S-Head and Snoot

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/160, 1/1 Power

TITO RIKARDO www.theuppermost.com @titorikardo

CONCEPT This photo was taken after the wedding reception at the dock behind the reception building in Bangkok. My idea was that I wanted to take a nice portrait photo of the couple in combination with random light painted strokes.

EXECUTION I’d forgotten to bring a tripod with me to the wedding, so I put my camera on the ground to take the shot. This had the added bonus of getting a reflection from some water on the ground. I put my camera on timer mode so it wouldn’t shake when I pressed the shutter button. Then I asked the couple to stand still while my friend ran around them with the LED light to create the painted light effect.

POST PRODUCTION I didn’t need to do much for the editing. All I did was increase the brightness, contrast and vibrance in Camera Raw.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Lightpainting for the sake of lightpainting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for Tito and his Uppermost team of wedding photographers, it can provide the finishing touch to their dramatic portraits. The leading lines of the railings, the reflected element in the pooled water and the warmth of the night sky all become compositional elements on which to layer the final energy of the cool painted light.

GEAR

Nikon D700

Nikon 20mm f/2.8

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight 120

Yongnuo YN-160

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/9, 25s, 1/8 Power, 50mm zoom

TONY HOFFER www.hofferphotography.com @hofferphotography

CONCEPT This image was taken on a beach in St. John.The couple was pretty specific that they wanted to avoid cliché walk-on-the-beach type photos, so we started looking for areas of contrast within the scenery We found a bunch of cool trees that we used as framing elements for most of the shoot.

EXECUTION Before we ever bring light into a scene, we make sure to dial in exactly how we want the ambient light of the scene to look. Since one of my pet-peeves is using flash for the sake of using flash, I often like to blend light in a more subtle way. So we slowed down the shutter to allow us to see the detail in the tree and around the scene, but underexposed it by a stop or so. Then we added light, but just enough to light the couple properly without lighting up the whole scene. We kept the light as close as possible (blocked it with the leaves) and slowly increased until we had the output that gave us the balance we were looking for. It was enough light to direct your eye, but not so much as to look super unnatural.

POST PRODUCTION I actually remember editing this photo (even though it was taken in 2014) because it was barely touched at all. We use a standard import preset that adjusts colors, adds contrast and things like that. Beyond that, there was barely anything. One thing we try to concentrate on when using lights is getting it as close to perfect as possible in camera. Since we’re taking the time to set up lights, we don’t want to lose more time behind a computer screen.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Whilst to an experienced photographer the subjects in this photo may appear artificially lit, it’s doubtful that an untrained eye would recognise anything unusual. Being able to balance ambient light with flash in this way to produce a realistic scene is a challenge that takes some years to master.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon TS-E 17mm f/4

Profoto B1 500 Flash 122

Paul C. Buff Stripbox

SETTINGS ISO 200, f/4, 1/60, Approx. 1/8 Power

TREVOR DAYLEY www.trevordayley.com @trevordayley

CONCEPT This photo was taken at during a wedding reception. The groom had stepped outside with his buddies to light up a cigar. I thought it would make for a great opportunity to create this type of image.

EXECUTION I set up my lightstand about 90 degrees to my left and had the groom look towards the light. On the lightstand was a Speedlite inside of a small softbox. It was about 7 feet up and tilted slightly down towards him. These days I’ve stopped using the softboxes and just replaced them with the more portable and durable MagMod modifiers that I use for the entire wedding day. I asked the groom to look directly towards the light as he puffed on the cigar. Rather than shooting wide open on my aperture I closed it down a bit to give myself a little more depth in focus in the shot.

POST PRODUCTION The only post processing on this image was turning it black and white and adding a bit of clarity and sharpness to the image.

EDITOR’S COMMENT In order to highlight smoke, rain, dust and other airborne particles, back-lighting, or in this case side-lighting, usually gives the best effect. Trevor uses a simple one light set up to photograph the groom’s side profile for a well balanced and effective composition.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 50mm f/1.4

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite

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Godox 23” Softbox

SETTINGS ISO 800, f/6.3, 1/30, 1/16 Power

VICTOR LAX www.victorlax.net @victorlax

CONCEPT My plan before taking the photo was to try and capture the smoke of the cigars of the bride and her friends. I wanted to highlight the bride in the photo in some way so she appeared as the subject away from the men.

EXECUTION I put two flashes behind the men at minimum power, and asked my assistant to point the Switronix LED with a 1/2 CTO gel applied (for a warm temperature) onto the bride to create some contrast in the lighting.

POST PRODUCTION I edited the photo by using Smart Objects in Photoshop. First I carefully edited the men and the background and after that I edited the bride. I tried to find a nice contrast with the different temperatures between the background and foreground.

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COMMENT Using cold vs warm light temperature is an effective way to achieve contrast in a photo. Here Victor produced a cool blue light (no doubt exaggerated in post) via the un-modified Speedlights in the background and the warmth of the 1/2 CTO gel on the LED panel on the bride to create subject separation. By using Smart Objects in Photoshop, each layer can be edited non-destructively.

GEAR

Nikon D5

Canon 35mm f/1.4

Nikon SB-900 Speedlight x2

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Switronix TLBT200 Torch LED

SETTINGS ISO 3200, f/4,1/ 200, 1/32 Power

VICTORIA SPRUNG www.sprungphoto.com @vsprungphoto

CONCEPT I knew there was an interesting reflection of the bridge over the Chicago river on the window outside the reception venue, so I wanted to use that somehow. I had an opportunity with the cake cutting, as I could see the couple through the window. I wanted to show off the couple’s venue and location in the photo, going beyond just the standard cake cutting shot.

EXECUTION My assistant was inside with an off camera flash pointed at the couple, to camera left. I shot through the window, and the gridded flash was used to isolate the couple. I brought my ISO way down and raised my shutter speed so that I could darken the background and foreground, and make the couple stand out amidst the surreal reflections. It took a few tries to get focus through the window, and to wait for a good moment!

POST PRODUCTION I did some burning in Lightroom in the spots around the couple, so that even more of the focus is on the couple. I also upped the blacks, sharpening, added noise reduction, and increased saturation and highlights. I did a little cropping as well, all in Lightroom.

EDITOR’S COMMENT Using reflections is a popular way for wedding photographers to tell multiple stories at once. By underexposing the ambient light, reflections are darkened (and become more apparent), and then artificial light can be used to highlight the subjects of the frame. Victoria takes this up a level by capturing what appears to be an un-posed moment of the couples’ wedding day.

GEAR

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon 70200mm f/2.8 II

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite 128

MagMod Flash Modifier with Grid attachment

Half CTO filter gel

SETTINGS ISO 160, 44mm f/2.8, 1/200, 1/8 Power

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FEATURED LIGHTING GEAR

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hilst compiling LIT, I observed common trends in the lighting gear being used by wedding photographers around the world.

The most common way to light a subject is still the humble flash unit, or for those who require a little more power, the strobe. However, in order to achieve a wider variety of creative effects, there are a handful of products that have been gaining popularity in the wedding photography industry that I’d like to investigate a little further here.

MAGMOD MagMod Flash Diffusers are a revolutionary flash modification system for Canon and Nikon hotshoe flashes. The MagMod system revolves around the MagGrip, a durable, flexible silicone band that stretches over your flash and remains there securely until you decide to remove it. The silicone rubber retains its elasticity over time, meaning that if you decide to remove and reattach the MagGrid over and over, it’ll never become loose. I choose to leave the MagGrid permanently attached to my flash, since the flash can be used as normal without any MagMod diffuser attached. The universal design means the MagGrip can attach to virtually any hotshoe flash available. The MagGrip contains 2 strong magnets, which act as the fastening point for a range of MagMod accessories. Each of the MagMod flash diffusers is designed to alter the quality or the direction of the light from your flash in some way. There are several different MagMod flash diffusers available, but the most popular in the wedding industry, at least during my research for this book are the MagGrid and MagShere. The MagGrid attaches to the front of the MagGrip to control the direction and spread of the flash output. The honeycomb-like pattern on the grid is designed to provide even light coverage and, eliminating unwanted light spill. Specifically, the MagGrid focuses the flash’s light in a 40 degree beam pattern, with minimal spill or hot spots. You can even stack multiple MagGrids on top of each other to create a snooted, spot light effect on the subject.

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With off camera lighting, the most dramatic effects are often created when light is subtracted. In order to add light to the areas you wish to highlight whilst keeping other areas dark, you need to be able to control light spill. A popular usage by wedding photographers of the MagGrid is during off camera portraits, whereby a gridded flash unit is set up to point at the couple and triggered remotely by the camera when taking the shot. The MagGrid allows the photographer to highlight the subject with greater control, ensuring that any light from the flash ‘spilling’ into unwanted areas of the image is kept to a minimum. I like to use my MagGrid on the dancefloor during the wedding reception as a way to create a pleasing in-camera vignette. This helps to highlight the action in front of you, throwing the surrounding elements into darkness. In this instance, I use the MagGrid in conjunction with a ¼ CTO gel to warm the subjects up slightly. MagMod has since released the MagGel, which is a more durable alternative to modify the colour of the flash output than traditional cellophane gel strips. The MagSphere is an omni-directional flah diffuser which transforms the harsh light of your flash into a soft light source. It also increases the size of your light-emitting surface by over 250% for a softer glow over a bigger area. The MagSphere is made from a solid piece of durable rubber, allowing it to be squashed into a small crevice of your camera bag, ‘popping’ back into shape when you’re ready to use it. Two magnets secure the MagSphere to the MagGrip, and up to 2 MagGels can be added via the integrated gel slot to colour the flash output. Some wedding photographers (myself included), like to combine the MagGrid with the MagSphere, to provide precisely controlled soft light. Since all MagMod products use the same strong magnets, multiple accessories can be stacked to create a customisable lighting set up.

Find out more about MagMod at www.magmod.com EXCLUSIVE TO LIT READERS: Use Coupon Code MMLIT17 to claim a $10 discount plus free shipping.

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PIXELSTICK The Pixelstick is one of those rare photography accessories that really opens the door to unlimited creativity. For those who want to create an image that’s truly unique, the Pixelstick is the lighting gadget for you. In essence, the Pixelstick is a tool for light painting, a technique whereby exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph. You’ve probably had a play around with sparklers and slow shutter speeds in the past – being able to draw shapes whilst the image is being recorded can be fun. The Pixelstick takes this to a whole new level, giving photographers the ability to ‘paint’ absolutely anything onto the image canvas. The Pixelstick is a long (73”) aluminium rod crammed with 200 RGB LEDs, which can produce over 16 million colours. The key is that each one of those LEDs is individually programmable, meaning that the Pixelstick can display any image you choose to load into it. The LEDs act liks a pixel on a screen, displaying your image one vertical line at a time as you walk. These vertical lines, when captured by a long exposure, combine to recreate your image suspended in mid-air, leaving the Pixelstick (and the person carrying it) invisible. The Pixelstick comes with 12 built-in patterns to get you started, but the real magic comes when you start loading in your own images via the SD card slot on the controller. You’ll have seen photographers in the LIT book using images of fire or rainbows, but words, illustrations and even moving gifs can be used too. Once you’ve chosen your image, you use the Pixelstick’s controller to tweak brightness, speed, white balance, orientation and a host of other options to further customise your shot. Then it’s just a matter of setting your camera to a long shutter speed, securing it to a tripod or other steady object, then walking in front of your camera whilst triggering the Pixelstick. There’s a removable spinning handle which allows you to create the spinning light painting images that you’ll have also seen in LIT.

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Lightpainting is a unique way to differentiate your wedding photography work from that of your peers. Despite it not being a rather niche technique which doesn’t suit all styles, an image which features well-executed light painting will tend to have a much bigger impact to clients than something that has perhaps been seen many times before. After all, it’s typically these somewhat whacky light-painted images that become viral over social media, especially when the viewer has no idea how the image was created. The Pixelstick is a tool that helps photographers create something truly unique. I reviewed one for the purpose of LIT, and found it to be well built, intuitively designed and above all, a whole lot of fun! There’s a slight learning curve to the preparation of image files and actual execution of the shot, but after a few attempts, I was able to create images similar to those seen on the Pixelstick website. I especially liked the ability to load multiple images into the Pixelstick controller at once, then select the one that best suited the occasion ‘on the fly’. In this way, I can imagine wedding photographers loading the Pixelstick with various images that can be used to create a tailored product unique to their client – perhaps the clients’ names, a wedding date, or even a photograph of them from an earlier point in the day. The light painting possibilities of the Pixelstick are endless, and it’s exciting to see what new images will be captured by creative wedding photographers around the world.

Find out more about the Pixelstick at www.thepixelstick.com EXCLUSIVE TO LIT READERS: Use Coupon Code litbook to claim a $65 discount.

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LOWEL GL-1 Resembling a handheld drill, the Lowel GL-1 Power LED is a powerful handheld, focusable and dimmable tungsten colour light. Designed as an innovative tool for still photographers who need great quality light with precision control, the Lowel GL-1 has been steadily gaining in popularity with wedding photographers since its release. The key feature of the GL-1 which really put it above other handheld continuous lighting devices is the high quality of light which it emits. The focusable Fresnel lens can create a spotlight which has virtually no edge-to-edge falloff or hotspots. In addition, the colour of light from the GL-1 is perfectly consistent, allowing for very simple white balance adjustments in post. The beam of light from the GL-1 is similar to a ¼ CTO gel, which makes it perfect for warming up subjects’ skin tones or balancing with tungsten lights. After focusing the beam of light using the sliding outer barrel of the GL-1, you adjust the light power output by squeezing a trigger or rotating a wheel located at the back of the unit. The trigger moves in and out as squeezed, whereas the dimming wheel stays fixed on your chosen light output setting. This allows the GL-1 to be used ‘hands-free’, or attached to a lighting stand via the tripod mount on the base of the unit. The GL-1 lasts for approximately 1 hour at full brightness per change, which in practice is more than enough for portraits at a wedding. Some photographers like to use a couple of GL-1’s set up on light stands during the speeches, in order to project one tight spot light beam on the talker, and one slightly wider one at the newly weds or bridal party to capture their reactions. Having the ability to run the GL-1 from the AC adaptor offers the possibility to use it as a continuous light source throughout the event. A built-in fan is silent and unobtrusive, providing the necessary cooling to run the unit indefinitely. Optional accessories can be fitted onto the Lowel GL-1 to add to the creative options. The lens accepts any 82mm filters (such as one for daylight correction), and Barndoors can be added to further control the light.

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When I first heard about the Lowel GL-1, I must admit I was slightly baffled. Why would photographers purchase this rather cumbersome looking tool to light their portraits when much smaller, cheaper LED panels were available. Dare I say it, why wouldn’t one just use a handheld torch?! Anyone who’s ever used an LED light panel will know of their limitations, most notably in the control of the light direction and spill. There’s simply no way of focusing an LED panel, and even if you use Barndoors to direct the light, you’ll never achieve a perfect spot light. As for handheld torches, their purpose is to throw light forward, regardless of the quality of the light. Using a regular torch to shine into your subject’s face for example will yield terrible results (not to mention blinding your subject if your torch isn’t dimmable)! Hot spots, inconsistent colour temperature and light spill are a few of the issues you’ll run into. It’s difficult to appreciate the quality of light until you actually see the recorded image on a large screen. Unfortunately, by this time it’s usually too late! So with this in mind, I decided to see what the fuss was about with the Lowel GL-1. I’d already seen that several of the world’s top wedding photographers included in this book were using the GL-1, so I was confident that there was more than meets the eye to this somewhat controversial gadget. The first thing that you’ll notice about the Lowel GL-1 is the build quality. Whilst I wouldn’t be confident dropping it from a height, it definitely feels like it’s been built to last. The fan whirs silently into action as soon as the GL-1 is turned on. I can’t see the noise being an issue, even in the quietest of church ceremonies. As for the light that emitted by the Lowel-GL-1, as I mentioned before, it’s only during post processing that you really appreciate why the GL-1 commands a premium price. The quality of the light is really flawless, allowing you to light your subject as if you were in a studio. The level of control that can be achieved by focusing the light from the GL-1 allows you to pinpoint your subject, throwing everything else into under exposure. Or, by dimming the light output, you can easily balance the ambient light to create an evenly-lit subject without harsh shadows or hot spots. Another popular usage of the Lowel GL-1 for wedding photographers is a technique actually borrowed from architecture and real estate photography. By setting your camera to a long exposure, the GL-1 can be used to momentarily spotlight an object, such as a table centrepiece, to achieve the desired exposure. By repeating this technique through the duration of the exposure, magazine-quality images can be created where each important element of the scene has the correct illumination and sharpness.

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The old way of doing this would involve setting up multiple lights on each individual subject, or worse still, using one light and taking multiple images to create a composite in post production. Using the GL-1, the image can be quickly created in just one exposure, entirely in-camera. If you have the luxury of an assistant, or like me, aren’t afraid to ask a member of the bridal party to lend a hand, it’s easy to create a dynamic illuminated portrait in seconds with the GL-1. There’s no light stands to set up, and thanks to the GL-1 being a continuous light source, the Live View image on the back of your camera is truly what-you-see-is-what-you-get. The size, weight and cost of the Lowel GL-1 may be hurdles for some wedding photographers looking to invest in a professional lighting solution, but for those who can see the value in this versatile tool, there really is no other option that can compete in the same league.

Find out more about the Lowel GL-1 at www.lowelgl.tiffen.com

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Condon is a Sydney based British wedding photographer shooting weddings around the world. Through his work with popular photography website Shotkit, he has gained knowledge and experience working with some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most successful wedding photographers. Mark compiled the LIT book to demystify off camera lighting and help wedding photographers step out the comfort zone of natural light. www.shotkit.com

Photo by Daniel Stark

Other popular books by Mark: The Shotkit Book

Lightroom Power User

Discover the camera gear of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best photographers.

Supercharge your Lightroom experience.

www.shotkitbook.com

www.lightroompoweruser.com

The Shotkit Book Vol II

More Brides

More photography. More camera gear. More awesome!

Smarter marketing techniques for the modern wedding photographer.